The NASCAR Cup Series Chase heads to Kansas Speedway on Sunday afternoon for the Hollywood Casino 400, where Kyle Larson, Alex Bowman, and Carson Hocevar headline this week’s betting picks and value predictions.
Hollywood Casino 400 Picks
Date: Sunday, September 27, 2026
Track: Kansas Speedway
Time: 3:00 PM ET
Channel: USA
What Did We Learn Last Weekend?
Poor Joey Logano! For someone who took the win Saturday night under the lights at Bristol, it sure was overshadowed by the shenanigans on pit road. For Logano, it was a strong win for someone who has hasn’t seen great success since the mid-2010s. In fact, his last win here was 2015. He’s been making strides, but this win was solid after having a great car through the night. It was definitely a win that is going to help with his championship hopes this year.
The real show was clearly the Hocevar and Blaney fight off the track. Blaney initially claimed he was heading over to Hocevar after the race to talk. We all knew better. Hocevar, claiming he never hit anyone before, easily handed Blaney the old 1,2 and showed him that you don’t get to start a fight you can’t finish. Honestly, Blaney was wrong. Blaney made a block on a faster car and got what is to be expected at Bristol. It was a racing incident when all was said and done that clearly heightened Blaney’s anger threshold. That being said, Blaney came out and owned it yesterday during an interview. He knew he messed up, and I definitely respect him for that. Hocevar, quite frankly, didn’t do anything wrong. If you haven’t seen Kenny Wallace’s clip explaining why they learned to move out of Earnhardt Sr.’s way during the hay day of NASCAR, I’d encourage you to take a look. It puts things into perspective and will give you a good chuckle.
Where Are We Headed This Weekend?
Spire Motorsports is backing their driver and a lot of other teams, drivers, and commentators are on board the Hocevar train. Do we want to have a problem every week? Of course not. But are we being dramatic or are the opinions correct? We’ll always have folks on both sides of that argument. Regardless, this weekend brings us to the fourth race of the Chase this season hosted at Kansas Speedway. This 1.5 mile asphalt tri-oval gives us 17-20 degrees of banking in the turns, 10 degrees on the frontstretch, and 5 degrees on the backstretch. Kansas is a lot of handling and managing equipment. This track is high speed but also favors the high line, the extremely high line. Guys like Kyle Larson love riding the rim as they say, and this track lends itself to doing just that. It’s a very slim margin of not tapping the wall or losing your grip. Aero is also a big concern here while maintaining track position. Drivers leading often wear the right rear tire pretty heavily trying to hold off slide jobs from other drivers. Restarts are hard and multiple grooves do exist outside of the favored high line, so it won’t be uncommon to see three and four wide racing throughout the day.
Odds and Value Picks
Picking a winner at Kansas is like a broken record it seems like. We have two of our top championship contenders in Denny Hamlin and Kyle Larson as our best options. Other top options include Tyler Reddick and Christopher Bell, especially based on 2026 performance. Current NASCAR betting odds are available at Bovada. Let’s take a look at your potential winners heading into Sunday’s race:
Winner: Kyle Larson (+400)
I know. Larson. Again. But y’all, he won at WWTR and came home with a runner up last weekend. He’s literally the best driver at Kansas over the last 3 years with 2 wins and 547 laps led. That’s exponentially better than pretty much anyone else.
Mid-Range Pick: Alex Bowman (+5000)
Bowman is still a B list driver in my book, but he’s getting better as the races tick off this year, especially later in the season. He gave Larson a strong assist a couple of weeks ago and is a great driver historically at this track. In his last 7 starts, he has 4 top 10 finishes. This might be his best shot for the rest of the year at a win. Let’s see what he does with it.
Dark Horse: Carson Hocevar (+2500)
Despite being in the Chase this year, Hocevar still has a lot of growing to do. This track, though, gives him a great chance to do what he does best and that’s to be aggressive. Kansas is a track you have to battle both the other drivers and the asphalt. For Hocevar, being intentional with that energy will be critical. He might just surprise us all in harnessing that energy for good.
Chase Field Heading Into Kansas Speedway
Hocevar jumped another position in the championship points, moving up to 8th after Bristol. Kyle Larson bumped Denny Hamlin and now sits one point above him for the lead. Joey Logano was our biggest mover and shaker, moving 4 spots into 3rd place. Let’s see the full breakdown of where everyone landed after an excitement filled night under the lights on Saturday:
1. Kyle Larson
2. Denny Hamlin
3. Joey Logano
4. Christopher Bell
5. Ty Gibbs
6. Ryan Blaney
7. Tyler Reddick
8. Carson Hocevar
9. Chase Briscoe
10. Bubba Wallace
11. Austin Cindric
12. Chase Elliott
13. William Byron
14. Ryan Preece
15. Chris Buescher
16. Daniel Suarez
There’s only 17 points separating 1st through 4th. That’s a very narrow margin right now. What that tells us is that every point still matters and stage points are going to be heavily fought over. Who will make the most gains this weekend as we venture back to the intermediate tracks? Stay tuned for the 4th race of the Chase to the Sprint Cup Championship!
