Haas Factory Team
Kansas Speedway
NASCAR Cup Series Notes
Race Information
● Event: AdventHealth 400 (Round 9 of 36)
● Date/Time: Sunday, April 19 | 2 p.m. ET
● TV/Radio: FOX / MRN / SiriusXM NASCAR Radio (channel 90)
● Location: Kansas Speedway, Kansas City, Kansas
● Layout: 1.5-mile asphalt tri-oval
● Laps/Miles: 267 laps/400.5 miles
● Practice and qualifying:
Saturday, April 18
Practice 4 p.m. ET
Prime / MRN / SiriusXM NASCAR Radio (channel 90)
Qualifying 5:10 p.m. ET
Prime / MRN / SiriusXM NASCAR Radio (channel 90)
Notes of Interest
● The NASCAR Cup Series heads to Kansas Speedway for the first of two race weekends on the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series calendar.
● Kansas Speedway is a Gen Zer?? Yep. If you go by Cup Series races, Kansas Speedway is the youngster of all the ovals, with its first race taking place on September 30, 2001. It beats out Nashville Superspeedway by mere months, where the first Cup race took place in April of 2001.
● Jeff Gordon won the inaugural NASCAR Cup Series race at Kansas Speedway.
● What was once considered just another 1.5-mile intermediate oval — the kind critics dismissed as cookie-cutter racing — Kansas Speedway has quietly evolved into one of the most competitive stops on the NASCAR schedule. This is due to a $9 million construction project in the summer of 2012 and a concept called progressive banking. Rather than banking the corners at a uniform angle, engineers built in a gradient. The banking increases from 17 degrees at the bottom of the turn to 20 degrees at the top. The frontstretch is banked at nine to 11 degrees. The backstretch sits at five degrees. On paper, the difference sounds minor. On the racetrack, it changed how the surface drives entirely.
● Each team gets nine sets of Goodyear Racing Eagle tires for the race (eight new race sets plus one set transferred from qualifying).
By the Numbers
● Custer makes his 10th Cup start at Kansas this weekend, where he has a 19.6 average finish. His lone top-10 result came in July 2020 when he finished seventh.
● The Ladera Ranch, California, native’s best start was 10th in May 2021, and he has a 22.1 average starting position.
● Custer has made six career NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series starts at Kansas, with the latest producing a second-place finish in September 2024 after leading 48 laps.
No. 41 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 Driver and Crew Chief
Driver: Cole Custer
Hometown: Ladera Ranch, California
Crew Chief: Aaron Kramer
Hometown: Wellsville, New York