The 2016 Hollywood Casino 400 was a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race held on October 16, 2016, at Kansas Speedway in Kansas City, Kansas. Contested over 267 laps on the 1.5 mile (2.4 km) intermediate speedway, it was the 31st race of the 2016 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season, fifth race of the Chase and second race of the Round of 12.
Report
Background
Kansas Speedway is a tri-oval race track in Kansas City, Kansas. It was built in 2001 and it currently hosts two annual NASCAR race weekends. The Verizon IndyCar Series also raced at here until 2011. The speedway is owned and operated by the International Speedway Corporation.
Entry list
First practice
Kyle Busch was the fastest in the first practice session with a time of 27.750 and a speed of .
Qualifying
Matt Kenseth scored the pole for the race with a time of 28.112 and a speed of . After qualifying, Kenseth said it was "nice to get a pole. 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."
Kyle Busch, who qualified second, said his car "was pretty good. We certainly felt pretty happy with it earlier today and through practice and having a fast car there. So that was really strong in showing the speed that we have. Just trying to mimic that here today in qualifying. I felt like we did a really good job of that in the second round and I felt even better about my lap in the third round but Matt was just able to get a little bit more out of it. Certainly messed up a little bit just the way the car was balanced through 1 and 2 being prepared for it and being able to get the most out of it. I had to re-lift and get out of the gas in turn two so that’s probably where our time was."
Qualifying results
Practice (post-qualifying)
Second practice
Paul Menard was the fastest in the second practice session with a time of 29.241 and a speed of .
Final practice
Matt Kenseth was the fastest in the final practice session with a time of 28.976 and a speed of . Kurt Busch went to a backup car after he suffered a right-front tire blowout, spun out exiting turn 4 and damaged the front end of his car going through the infield grass.
Race
First half
Under mostly sunny Kansas skies, Matt Kenseth led the field to the green flag at 2:34 p.m. Debris on the backstretch brought out the first caution of the race on lap 26. Brian Scott was sent to the tail end of the field on the restart for speeding on pit road.
The race restarted on lap 31. The second caution flew for a three-car wreck in turn 4 involving Aric Almirola, David Ragan and Scott. Almirola went on to finish 40th.
The race restarted on lap 42. The third caution of the race flew on lap 44 after Jamie McMurray suffered a right-front tire blowout and slammed the wall in turn 3 following contact with Alex Bowman in turn 2.
The race restarted on lap 48. Green flag stops started on lap 83. Kenseth pitted from the lead on lap 87 and handed it to Joey Logano. He pitted the next lap and handed the lead to Brad Keselowski. He pitted the next lap and handed the lead to Denny Hamlin. He pitted the next lap and handed the lead to Casey Mears. He pitted on lap 95 and the lead cycled back to Kenseth.
Martin Truex Jr., who was running in the top-10 and had a problem that prevented him from getting his car completely fueled up, made an unscheduled stop on lap 114. Truex said after the race that he "pitted when [he] had to and hoped for the best. It’s really all you could do. We had a good car when we were up front. It wasn’t great. We were too tight on the short runs to loose on the long runs and we battled the whole run just to try to be OK. And once we lost track position, that made everything worse and magnified it and just really fought all day to get back where we were and then pitted the last stop and only gave up a couple more spots and could never get it back.” Adding insult to injury, Josh Wise slammed the wall in turn 4 and brought out the fourth caution of the race. A. J. Allmendinger was sent to the tail end of the field on the restart for speeding on pit road.