{"id":1564264,"date":"2023-05-10T10:15:46","date_gmt":"2023-05-10T14:15:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sports7.us\/?p=1564264"},"modified":"2023-05-10T10:15:48","modified_gmt":"2023-05-10T14:15:48","slug":"fantastic-kansas-race-suggests-nascar-left-another-intermediate-track-prematurely","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sports7.us\/news\/fantastic-kansas-race-suggests-nascar-left-another-intermediate-track-prematurely\/","title":{"rendered":"A Fantastic Kansas Race Suggests NASCAR Left Another Intermediate Track Prematurely"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
The NASCAR<\/a> Cup Series race this past Sunday at Kansas Speedway<\/a> was arguably one of the best races at an intermediate track in the sport's history, which makes the sanctioning body's decision to leave similar tracks four years ago all the more unfortunate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Denny Hamlin<\/a> won the race at the 1.5-mile Kansas track in a final-lap duel with Kyle Larson. Their battle, however, was only the final flourish to an action-packed, 267-lap event. The race featured nine cautions for incidents and 37 lead changes, a record for a 400-mile race at a 1.5-mile track, among 12 different drivers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The stats are more similar to a superspeedway event than an intermediate-track race, but this Kansas race had everything NASCAR envisioned when it developed the Next Gen<\/a> car model for its 2022 debut. The car requires all teams to purchase their parts from the same supplier, and it has aerodynamic characteristics intended to help create races that allowed passing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n All of those developments manifested on Sunday at a type of track where the Next Gen car has typically excelled. Intermediate-track racing has seen a boom of exciting races while the quality of races at other track types has suffered.<\/p>\n\n\n\nNASCAR took away intermediate tracks just before it got a good intermediate-track car<\/h2>\n\n\n\n