MATT KENSETH WINS KANSAS POLE;JGR SWEEPS FRONT ROW

RELATED: Starting lineup | See Sunday's full roster | Chase Grid

KANSAS CITY, Kan. -- To learn how to master the track that continued to jinx him,Kyle Busch paid close attention to the wayMatt Kenseth drove Kansas Speedway.

Though Kenseth was helpful, he apparently kept a thousandth of a second in his pocket. That was the margin by which Kenseth edged Busch in Friday's NASCARSprint Cup Series knockout qualifying session at the 1.5-mile track.

Touring Kansas in 28.112 seconds (192.089 mph) to Busch's 28.113 seconds (192.082 mph), Kenseth earned the top starting spot for Sunday's Hollywood Casino 400 (at 2:15 p.m. ET on NBC, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), the fifth race in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup and the second race in the Chase’s Round of 12.

"Smoked him!" chortled Kenseth, as Busch emerged from the radio room after an interview on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. "Smoked him!"

The Coors Light Pole Award was Kenseth's first of the season, his third at Kansas and the 18th of his career. With Busch claiming the second spot on the grid and teammateCarl Edwards (191.015 mph) qualifying third, JGR cars will start 1-2-3 for the first time since August at Bristol.

"It's nice to get a pole," Kenseth said. "I feel like our qualifying hasn't been nearly as good this year as it has been in the rest of the years I've been at JGR. We barely got it -- it was by a thousandth, or something like that.

"Obviously, our Camrys have been fast … Round one we were pretty decent -- it was off a little bit -- and then round three it was just right. We almost got beat, but it was as good of a lap as we were going to run. They did a good job today."

Kenseth joined Joe Gibbs Racing in 2013. Busch didn't get his first top five at Kansas until the spring race of 2015, which started a run of third, fifth and first in consecutive events at a track where his average finish is 19.2.

Busch's second-place qualifying run on Friday was his best so far at the 1.5-mile track, and he freely acknowledged learning from Kenseth.

"We've talked a little bit, and I've certainly used some of the things that we've talked about with all of my teammates in order to get better here," Busch told the NASCAR Wire Service. "Just looking and studying about technique and things that he does and being able to work on how Matt carries his car around the track and where he makes his speed and me trying to be able to do the same thing.

"A lot of it has just come through technique and just being able to mimic the things that he does, and we've gotten a lot better at that. Certainly, our balance could have been a tick better in order to give me a little more security and feeling in order to go out there and run two thousandths faster."

Chase driver Martin Truex Jr. made it a quartet of Toyotas on the front two rows with a fourth-place qualifying effort at 190.786 mph. Alex Bowman was the only non-Chase driver to crack the top five, turning in a lap at 190.315 mph.

Of the five drivers who finished 30th or worse last Sunday at Charlotte and put their advancement to the Chase's Round of 8 in jeopardy, Joey Logano had the best recovery, qualifying sixth.

"That's better than where we have been," Logano said. "We qualified 14th here the last two times we've come here. We made a serious effort at changing some things here with the way we qualified to start closer to the front which is important.

"That's kind of where we were. We were about a sixth-place car today, and we need to find a little more, but we made progress." 

Denny Hamlin, 30th at Charlotte and the eighth-place Chase driver entering Sunday's race, will start seventh. Kevin Harvick and Austin Dillon, both currently below the Round of 8 cutoff, qualified 11th and 12th, respectively.

Chase Elliott, victim of a late wreck and resulting 33rd-place finish last Sunday, failed to make the final round on Friday and will start 13th. Two other Chase drivers qualified outside the top 12: Kurt Busch(15th) and Charlotte winner Jimmie Johnson (19th).

"From Round 1 to Round 2, the car was much tighter," said Johnson, who was 10th in the first round. "We attempted to free it up, but I'm not sure some of those adjustments didn't change the ride height of the car and affected the splitter orientation with the ground. So, maybe we were on the splitter a little bit. 

"But a ton tighter than what we had in the opening round. But, other than that, our car was repeating very well earlier in the day so kind of leaning that way. I don't know if it is good or bad, but I'm not accustomed to qualifying well all the time. I'm used to racing through traffic. I'm not worried about this; we'll just get that Lowe's Chevy up there."

JIMMIE JOHNSON VS. REGAN SMITH:A RIVALRY IS BORN?

While I normally try to make every effort to watch every lap of every race (I knew I should have taken Kevin Harvick’s advice from that 2003 commercial), I seem to have missed a crucial element to one narrative -- Jimmie Johnson's apparent rivalry with Regan Smith, driver of the No. 7 Tommy Baldwin Racing Chevrolet.

Despite Johnson successfully snapping a 24-race winless streak at Charlotte last week, fans of the six-time champ are calling for the 7's head on Twitter.

While Johnson hasn’t yet taken any action or retaliation toward Smith, fans seem to consider it a matter of when -- not if -- Jimmie gets No. 7.

Their question is simple: What's holding him back? Is it the pit crew? A grand conspiracy?

It's unclear what sparked the rivalry with Smith, whose No. 7 Chevrolet isn't battling Johnson in this year’s Chase, but Johnson's fans make it clear that something is coming -- perhaps even this year.

MANUFACTURERS OFFER CARS,MORE IN SWEEPSTAKES

RELATED: Sign up for sweepstakes today

All three NASCAR manufacturers are taking to social media, reminding fans of possible end-of-season rewards -- including new cars.

Chevrolet, Ford and Toyota all have sweepstakes where those who enter can win a Chevrolet SS, Ford Fusion Sport or Toyota Camry XSE. Learn more about that here.

Beyond even a new car, fans can win multiple prizes from each manufacturer, including a trip to Las Vegas for Champion's Week.

See below as Austin Dillon, Brad Keselowski, Kyle Busch and more fill in the details via social media.

TALLADEGA CHAIRMAN EXPLAINS BURN BAN FOR RACE WEEKEND

Open campfires, long a staple of fans attending NASCAR races at Talladega Superspeedway, will not be allowed on track property during next weekend's race events at the track featuring the Sprint CupSeries and the Camping World TruckSeries.The ban is in conjunction with a Drought Emergency Declaration signed by Alabama Governor Robert Bentley that covers 46 counties, including Talladega County.
"We're not going to allow any open fires," Grant Lynch, Chairman of the 2.66-mile track, told NASCAR.com Thursday.
Campfires, fire pits, fireworks, flying lanterns and other similar outdoor activities or items will not be permitted. The use of grills for cooking will still be allowed "but you can't use it as a heat source (to stay warm)," he said.
"We are probably just a couple of days ahead of the state putting the same (restrictions) on maybe all the counties that are currently under the burn ban. It's just really a tough situation in the fact that our parking lots, our campgrounds, everywhere is just bone dry and crunches under your feet.
"I've been here 23 years and we've never had to do this. There are fires everywhere in Alabama right now. And it's depleting the resources. We are doing the thing that is safest for our fans and to protect the folks that are going to be here having to put out any potential issues we have anyway."
While the Carolinas coastal region continues to recover from Hurricane Matthew's heavy rain and high winds, Lynch said last week's wet weather never made it far enough inland to impact his facility.
"Not a drop. It never got this far," he said. "We would have taken all we could have gotten. There is no green grass on the property; it's all brown."
Approximately 1,200 acres of track property is used for parking and campgrounds. The infield alone accounts for nearly 250 acres.
"People say, 'Well, you should water everything,'" Lynch said. "You can't water 1,200 acres."
If there's a bright side to the situation, it's the weather outlook for next weekend's doubleheader. Currently, the extended forecast calls for unseasonably warm temperatures.
"It's not like we're telling fans you can't have a campfire and it's going to be 30 degrees at night," Lynch said. "A nice jacket and you should be fine all weekend.
"If everyone cooperates, it will keep everyone safe here and we don't have unnecessary, runaway fires. We've already had a fire by the International Motorsports Hall of Fame. We put it out and about three hours later it came back. We put it out again. This stuff can go down into the ground and come up somewhere else.
"We're not doing this without a lot of thought and a lot of concern for taking care of everybody that's going to come to our property in the best way we can and we have to enforce this. It's our duty to do that for our fans."

Homestead-Miami Speedway to collect donations for Hurricane Matthew relief

Homestead-Miami Speedway, in partnership with Chris Fellowship Church, will be collecting donations on Oct. 14 at Fast Lane Friday presented by The Ticket Clinic to help those affected by Hurricane Matthew.

Homestead-Miami is also offering car enthusiasts who donate the chance the chance to enter their street-legal car for an opportunity to compete on the 1/8-mile drag strip from 6 p.m. to Midnight. Donations will be accepted started at 5 p.m.

Those who make donations from 5 – 9 p.m. will also have the opportunity to take a paced lap around the 1.5-mile speedway. Contributions can also be made without having to enter into Fast Lane Friday. Any individual who donates an item will be entered into a raffle with the chance to win a $100 gift card.

Those wishing to donate to the cause are encouraged to bring the follow supplies:

• Anti-Bacterial Bar Soap
• Antibiotic ointment
• Aspirin/Tylenol
• Baby blankets
• Baby bottles
• Baby clothing
• Baby formula
• Baby scales
• Bandages
• Batteries
• Diapers
• Feminine products
• First aid kits
• Flashlights
• Gauze
• Hand sanitizer
• Hygiene kits
• Mosquito nets/bed nets (for pregnant women to protect from Zika)
• Pedialyte
• Powdered baby formula
• Protein bars
• Protein drinks
• Tents/tarps
• Thermometers
• Vitamins
• Water purification tablets

Hurricane Matthew was a category 2 storm when it traveled up the Florida coast the weekend of Oct. 7. In addition to the damage it caused in Florida, Hurricane Matthew is reported to be responsible for the death of nine individuals while leaving one million people without power.

For more information on Fast Lane Friday at Homestead-Miami Speedway and Hurricane Matthew donations, you can visit here.

Podcast: Behind the scenes at the origins of the RTA and its charter negotiations with NASCAR

Inside an airplane hangar that’s a shrine to the P51 Mustang fighter pilots who helped win World War II, NASCAR’s most powerful team owners gathered to plot seismic events.
Rick Hendrick, Roger Penske, Richard Childress and Jack Roush met at a conference table in Roush’s personal hangar at the Concord, N.C., airport more than two years ago, identifying the stiffest economic headwinds facing their Sprint Cup organizations.
That was the genesis of the Race Team Alliance, an initially controversial consortium that brokered the landmark charter deal with NASCAR this season, recalibrating the team business model with more dependable and predictable revenue streams.
“It was fascinating,” Roush Fenway Racing president Steve Newmark, who attended the meeting, said in the latest NASCAR on NBC podcast. “As the owners were discussing the challenges they had on sponsorship and some things they saw coming down the pike, they all had similar views of what was going on. These were very successful businessmen both in racing and outside of it.”
In the podcast, Newmark details the behind-the-scenes machinations and negotiations that led to the formation of the RTA and team charters.
The meeting in Roush’s hangar was preceded by a February team owner meeting called by NASCAR at its headquarters in Daytona Beach, Fla., during Speedweeks 2014. Childress then lobbied his peers to gather independently.
“It evolved from there that the owners got together,” Newmark said. “We tried to figure out how to achieve some more synergies in the sport.
Part of the initial purpose was to talk about we’re all spending ridiculous amounts of money on hotels, rental cars. Is there a way we can leverage our purchasing power on some of these items to do a better job?
“That was one of the primary discussion topics. It wasn’t these meetings were intended to discuss ‘How can we overthrow NASCAR?’ That was some of the suspicions, and I understand that, but that wasn’t the origin or purpose.”
By June, the RTA (chaired by Rob Kauffman) was formed and announced on July 7, 2014, in the form of a news release.
Newmark said it was a much more complex process than it seemed.
“That was more work than anyone envisioned,” he said. “Even the simple act of selecting a name. I’ve still got an email with 50 names on it with everyone trying to create an acronym that made sense. Ultimately we settled on Race Team Alliance. We had to have attorneys guide us because we didn’t want to trip up on antitrust issues. We didn’t want to be anticompetitive, and there were lots of issues that we were told, ‘Hey, the teams together cannot talk about that.’ ”
Though the RTA had made NASCAR aware of its existence, it was met by a chilly reception from the sanctioning body, which initially indicated there would be no plans to recognize the group.
“We’d talked to NASCAR in advance, made sure they were aware, tried to alleviate concerns,” Newmark said. “But it was natural because it was such a sea change from how we operated in the past.
“I do think there was initial trepidation for certain folks in NASCAR. To be blunt, probably the concern was because you saw this whispered in the press. If I were in NASCAR, that would have been a legitimate concern. Is this what they are aiming to do? We had to have a learning process and build trust. There was a constant dialogue. After initial concern and pushback, it transformed very quickly.”
Within a year, the framework had been built for the charter system that would assign value to teams while allocating revenues through a new structure based partly on historical performance.
But while the numbers in the deal were worked out relatively easily, governance – or how much influence teams would have on the direction of NASCAR competition and rulemaking – was a sticking point that caused negotiations to last well into the offseason.
“One of the more contentious days, where I wondered if we’d be able to have a meeting of the minds, was Christmas Eve,” said Newmark, who was heavily involved with Kauffman in negotiations. “Rob and I, with some lawyers and some other team presidents, we were sending issues lists on Christmas (to NASCAR). We were able to bridge some of the gaps that came up then. That was a fairly constant process. It was fun doing it. It was grueling.”
Newmark recalled an all-night session at The Ballantyne Lodge in which talks with NASCAR went until 3 a.m. and resumed at 6 a.m. He took a nap at the hotel rather than make the 3-mile drive to his Charlotte home.
“Ask my kids, they’d get used to my phone lighting up with Rob Kauffman on it,” Newmark said. “It was very different than a lot of negotiations I was involved in with walkout moments. This had a more collaborative spirit. That doesn’t mean we didn’t have a difference of opinions, and we didn’t have some tough moments. But there really was an openness that I think was unprecedented in the sport.”
Other topics discussed by Newmark on the podcast:
–How the merger between Roush Racing and Fenway Sports Group transpired and how the entities still are working together;
–The evolution of team owner Jack Roush’s role from demanding leader to mentor;
–How NASCAR might be positioned to hook Millennials in the face of possibly declining car culture;
You can listen to the podcast by clicking below or download and subscribe to it on iTunes by clicking here.
The free subscription will provide automatic downloads of new episodes to your smartphone. It also is available on Stitcher by clicking here and also can be found on Google Play, Spotify and a host of other smartphone apps.

ISC issues third quarter report, discusses attendance for Sprint Cup events

International Speedway Corp. held its conference call with investor analysts Thursday morning to detail results from the third quarter.

ISC hosted four Sprint Cup weekends during the third quarter, which ended Aug. 31 — two races at Michigan, Daytona in July and Watkins Glen. For the full financial report, go here.

Among the items mentioned in the nearly hour-long conference call:

— Admissions for comparable Cup events was up about 1 percent compared to the same time last year. This was mostly attributed to the Daytona race in July. In 2015, the seating capacity was reduced to about 50,000 for the Daytona summer race as construction continued on the grandstand. The stadium debuted at this year’s Daytona 500 with 101,500 seats.

— Watkins Glen had a second consecutive sellout this year.

— Michigan International Speedway saw admission declines for both its Sprint Cup events.

— The average ticket price for the four Cup races at ISC tracks in the third quarter was $83.11. That’s an increase of about 8 percent from the same period last year. The increase was mainly generated by the new seating and pricing at Daytona.

— The average ticket price for all Cup races at ISC tracks through the first nine months of the year is $96.14. That’s an increase of about 8 percent, also driven by pricing at Daytona.

— For the fourth quarter, ISC reported lower attendance-related revenue for Cup weekends at Darlington, Richmond and Chicagoland Speedway. Advance sales for the remaining events at ISC tracks (Kansas, Talladega, Martinsville, Phoenix and Homestead) are down 10 percent on average. ISC officials anticipate a sellout for the season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

— In response to a question about admissions and the future of the sport, John Saunders, president of ISC, said on the call: “On the attendance side, we’re doing a number of things internally where we are looking at the next generation of fans and how we reach them. We’ve talked before about aging fans, avid fans that are aging out. We have repositioned resources within the company and are currently working through and resourcing how we recruit the next generation of fans. We’ve got to be very aggressive in the next phrase and we are. We’re ramping it up more than ever. … We’ve got great racing, but we’ve got to get these folks to the track, we’ve got to get them exposed to the live experience and from there we’ll build retention.’’

— In response to another question about attendance, Saunders noted the changing landscape of Cup drivers (both Jeff Gordon and Tony Stewart are scheduled to drive their final Sprint Cup races this season). Saunders said: “We find ourselves in the sport with star-power opportunities, I won’t call them challenges, I will call them opportunities. We have a generation of drivers who are starting to retire and we believe that’s having an impact. … What’s key for us on the attendance side is to stay focused on our consumer strategies, really, really honing in on the live entertainment value of these events, the social experience of these events and building that driver connectivity, star power, we’ve got great drivers coming up through the ranks.’’

— ISC exceeded its corporate sales target by about 12 percent from 2015.

— From 2017-2021, ISC plans to spend $500 million on capital expenditures. ISC has stated that redevelopment construction at Phoenix International Raceway will begin in 2017 and continue through late 2018.

— Daytona International Speedway’s stands suffered no structural damage from Hurricane Matthew.