BROADCAST INFORMATION: Saturday's race at Kansas Speedway will air live on FOX Sports 1 at 7:30 p.m. ET. Can’t make it to a television? The race can be heard live on MRN and SIRIUS XM NASCAR Radio. Below is the broadcast schedule for the remainder of the weekend.
Friday, May 12
11:30 a.m. ET: NASCAR Cup Series practice, FOX Sports 1
1:30 p.m. ET: NASCAR Cup Series final practice, FOX Sports 1
6:45 p.m. ET: NASCAR Cup Series qualifying, FOX Sports 1
Saturday, May 13
7:30 p.m. ET: NASCAR Cup Series qualifying, FOX Sports 1
THIS WEEKEND’S PAINT SCHEMES: Kasey Kahne will drive the No. 5 Farmers Insurance Chevrolet SS, Chase Elliott will man the No. 24 NAPA AUTO PARTS Chevrolet SS, Jimmie Johnson will pilot the No. 48 Lowe’s Chevrolet SS while Dale Earnhardt Jr. will debut the No. 88 Mountain Dew DEW-S-A Chevrolet SS.
HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS AT KANSAS: At Kansas Speedway, Hendrick Motorsports has amassed six wins, five pole positions, 29 top-five finishes and 51 top-10 finishes in addition to 1,075 laps led. Johnson, who leads active drivers in wins, top-five finishes and top-10 finishes at the track, most recently won for the organization at Kansas in 2015.
KAHNE’S POLE AWARDS AT KANSAS: Kahne has earned three of his 27 career NASCAR Cup Series pole awards at Kansas – October 2006, October 2010 and October 2012. The three first-place starting positions ties for his second-most at a track with Las Vegas Motor Speedway and Michigan International Raceway. The only other track the Enumclaw, Washington, native has more pole awards is Darlington Raceway, where he has amassed four.
ELLIOTT'S KANSAS STATS: The Dawsonville, Georgia, native is set to make his third Cup start at Kansas this weekend. In his previous two starts at the 1.5-mile tri-oval, Elliott has collected one top-10 finish and averaged a starting position of 13.0 and a finishing position of 20.0. He also has two starts at Kansas Speedway in the NASCAR XFINITY Series, earning two top-10 finishes and averaging a starting position of 12.0 and finishing position of 8.5.
JOHNSON’S KANSAS STATS: According to NASCAR’s loop data, Johnson has the series-best driver rating at the 1.5-mile track with a score of 110.6. The driver rating is a formula that combines wins, top-15 finishes, average running position while on the lead lap, average speed under green, fastest lap, most laps led and lead-lap finishes. The maximum a driver can earn in each race is 150 points. Johnson’s average running position, also a series-best at Kansas, is 9.346 and he boasts an average finish of 7.7
EARNHARDT's KANSAS STATS: While Earnhardt has yet to win a race at Kansas Speedway, he’s earned solid stats at the mile-and-a-half track. The driver of the No. 88 Mountain Dew DEW-S-A Chevrolet SS has one pole (2002) at the speedway. He’s earned top-five finishes in two of the last five races at Kansas, and in the other three he encountered issues unrelated to the speed of the car. According to NASCAR’s loop data statistics since 2005, Earnhardt ranks second among active drivers in the “closers” category, which represents the number of positions that a driver improves over the last 10 percent of the race. He has improved 26 positions, gaining an average of 1.6 spots. He also ranks fifth on average speed late in a run at 168.609 mph and has the sixth-best driver rating with 90.0.