Kyle Larson has been dominant in his No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet ever since the Chase began, and his Kansas dominance was further evidence of that. While Larson has established himself as the driver to beat, the Cup title race is dwindling down to a handful of contenders, with insiders hinting that it will be a three-horse race from here on out. 

A maximum points day at Kansas to get his second win in three races, Larson now has a 26-point lead over Denny Hamlin, while Hamlin’s Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Christopher Bell is the only other driver within 50 points of HMS’ two-time Cup Series winner. Jordan Bianchi and Jeff Gluck discussed how the table is shaping up after Kansas on the Teardown podcast, and their assessment doesn’t bode well for several contenders. 

“Let’s say, a week from now, we’re going to be together in Las Vegas talking after the Las Vegas race, and that may be a Denny Hamlin win, and we may say, ‘Oh, wow. Look at this. You know, it’s quite the championship fight going into Charlotte,'” said Gluck. “But this was a very, very damaging and maybe demoralizing day for the field because a 76-point day means that not one other Chase driver was able to gain any points on the leader. And more than that, not a single, not a single Chase driver lost less than 24 points to the lead today.”

While Larson picked up 76 points in Kansas, the next best was Austin Cindric in the No. 2 Team Penske Ford, who finished second and picked up 52 points. It was Cindric’s best finish this season, and it propelled him two places up to ninth on the leaderboard. Yet, Cindric’s gap to Larson increased from 116 to 140 points. 

Denny Hamlin finished third and picked up 51 points. Going into Kansas, the JGR veteran said that he needs “big points days” at the three intermediate tracks. Hamlin said a good day would be 50-plus points. While he did achieve his targets, his deficit to Larson, which was just one point out of Bristol, has now widened to 26 points. 

Cindric and Hamlin finished second and third, but the one driver who looked like he had a shot to win was Chase Briscoe in the No. 19 JGR Toyota. Gluck used Briscoe’s race to define how Larson’s streak is shutting the door on his championship dreams. 

“Briscoe got a chance to win this race, and we saw the points swing in the moment where he took the lead,” Gluck said. “Like, wow, that’s a big change because he came into this minus 87, because he only got seven stage points, so even if he won, he was still only going to be like minus 81 or minus 82. Then he obviously loses the lead, hits the wall, ends up finishing fourth. He gets out of his car, and what happens? He ends up losing 36 points to the lead today. He’s now minus 123, and his championship may be over just like that in one moment.”

Bianchi backed up Gluck’s point by outlining what happened to the other Penske drivers, Joey Logano and Ryan Blaney. Blaney finished fifth, having started 25th, and managed to limit some of the damage to his title hopes after DNFs at Gateway and Bristol. Blaney picked up 37 points and went up to fifth in points, but he is now trailing Larson by 91 points. 

Logano, on the other hand, was third in points, just 16 behind the championship leader following his Bristol victory. Based on that win, Logano was on pole position but was cleared by Larson immediately and ended his race in 20th, picking up just 25 points. With that finish, Logano dropped to fourth in points with Larson now 67 points ahead. 

While the insiders believe that drivers within 50 points are the only ones who can compete against Larson with six races to go, the top six drivers are all within 100 points of each other. Kyle Larson overcame a 55-point gap to Hamlin and took a lead of 26 points in the span of the first four races. By that math, Larson has picked up a total of 81 points in just four races. Which means the math still allows for drivers within 100 points of Larson a chance to make a comeback. 

The only driver who we haven’t mentioned yet is Ty Gibbs in the No. 54 JGR Toyota, who is sixth, 94 points away from the championship leader. Gibbs hasn’t really been the most consistent in the Chase. He finished second in Darlington, 18th at Gateway, fifth in Bristol, and 17th at Kansas. 

The math may be confusing, but Larson himself has set out the formula for what a driver needs to do in order to get into the title mix. The real question, though, that will be answered on track over the next six races is: can anyone go on a run like Larson has in the first four Chase races?