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News Analysis: Kasey Kahne to drive Leavine Family Racing’s No. 95 car

What happened: Leavine Family Racing, which currently fields the No. 95 car with Michael McDowell, announced Kasey Kahne will take over as its full-time driver in 2018. Kahne and Hendrick announced last month they would part ways after this year, but Kahne was ultimately able to remain in the Cup Series with another team.

What it means: Though his new home is certainly a downgrade from powerhouse Hendrick Motorsports, this is a good move for both Kahne and family-run Leavine (pronounced “leh-VINE”). Kahne is only 37 and has some prime years ahead of him, and this will allow him to race in an environment without the pressure that comes with being part of Hendrick. At the same time, Leavine’s performance has been improving over the years — McDowell has been the best car in the Richard Childress Racing alliance at numerous races this year — and figures to only get better with an 18-time race winner in the seat. In addition, Leavine should be able to build a sponsorship program around a driver whose loyal fan base has continued to support him through several miserable seasons at Hendrick.

News value (scale of 1-10): Five. This move was expected for awhile, so it’s not a surprise. It also involves a team that isn’t well known to many fans, though Kahne’s part of the announcement makes it notable enough to get a decent amount of media coverage.

Three questions: Will lowered expectations actually allow Kahne to improve his results (McDowell’s average finish is only one spot behind Kahne this season)? Why did Leavine remain part of the RCR alliance instead of working a deal with Hendrick? Will McDowell be able to remain in NASCAR in some form?

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The Top Five: Breaking down the Chicago and Sonoma races

Five thoughts after NASCAR’s playoff opener at Chicago and the IndyCar season finale at Sonoma…

1. U-S-A, U-S-A!

In 2012, when Ryan Hunter-Reay became the first American to win an IndyCar title in six years, there was hope his victory would help lead to a revitalization of open-wheel racing in the United States.

That didn’t happen. Perhaps that was in part because IndyCar doesn’t make enough ripples in the national sports scene to have an impact, but it also may have been because Hunter-Reay wasn’t able to finish in the top five in points since.

So it’s with a note of caution here when we say Josef Newgarden really could be the next great hope for helping to rejuvenate American open-wheel racing — but only if everything falls into place over the next several years.

Even before he signed with Team Penske this season, Newgarden was a tremendously marketable young driver. He’s a 26-year-old from suburban Nashville with tons of charisma, talent and the face of a movie star. Now he’s a champion — thanks to a near-flawless weekend at Sonoma — with plenty of years ahead of him.

It might be a fallacy that a big-time American star would really boost IndyCar to the next level, but that’s often been a debate that doesn’t get a chance to get settled because there hasn’t really been one. This generation of IndyCar has been dominated by South Americans and Europeans, and the top American open-wheel talents have largely ended up getting funneled into the NASCAR pipeline (Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart, Kasey Kahne, Kyle Larson, etc.).

Look, Newgarden is going to have to win a lot. He’s going to have to win more titles and an Indy 500 or two. But should Newgarden continue to shine, there’s a chance his visibility could rise on a national scale at the same time IndyCar does. And as the series champion, he’ll have more of a platform now to make an impact with sports fans.

“We don’t want a championship filled with just American drivers, but it’s important to have the best of America in it,” said Newgarden, who celebrated with an American flag draped around his shoulders. “We have to have the best from Europe and from anywhere overseas, because if it’s just Americans running, it wouldn’t mean anything. But certainly, having successful Americans is a big deal, too.”

2. Missed opportunity

This might anger all my new friends in IndyCar (seriously, everyone is so nice here!), but the Sonoma race didn’t do the series any favors in terms of winning over some NASCAR fans.

With the Chicagoland race serving as a lead-in on NBCSN, IndyCar had a golden opportunity to show stock car fans how compelling its brand of racing can be. Instead, Sonoma was a caution-free race with little drama — at least not the kind NASCAR fans are used to.

IndyCar fans probably love that, because they are fiercely proud of their purer brand of racing — no stages, no playoffs, no questionable cautions (even though they do have double points races and push to pass).

But here’s the thing: IndyCar needs to dip into the pool of NASCAR fans — present and former — to provide its best opportunity for growth. A mainstream sports fan is going to be harder for open-wheel racing to hook than a fan who is already predisposed to liking race cars.

I hope IndyCar continues to take steps toward being more and more relevant again in the sports world — and at the same time is able to coexist with NASCAR to have two very healthy forms of motorsport. Though their fans may argue (RIP my mentions this weekend), everyone still shares the common bond of being a race fan — which is becoming a rare breed these days.

3. Truex, again

Even when Martin Truex Jr. and his team screw up, like they did on Sunday, he still finds a way to win by more than seven seconds in a playoff race.

That’s a sobering fact for the competition, which looked like it might have a chance to beat Truex after he sped on pit road and later had to make an extra pit stop for missing lug nuts, which left him in 17th place.

The No. 78 car is so fast that it can overcome seemingly anything, though — at least if it happens early enough in the race — and Truex was back to the lead in plenty of time.

Truex now has 58 playoff points for Rounds 2 and 3, and the only realistic chance of beating him will come when the four contenders battle straight-up for the championship at Homestead.

In the meantime, expect a lot more races like Chicagoland in the coming weeks.

“We really don’t have any tracks I feel like we’re not good at,” Truex said. “It’s just being confident each and every week no matter where we’re going is the difference. We don’t have any big question marks on the schedule anymore.”

4. Keselowski’s great tweet

Brad Keselowski pissed off the Toyota NASCAR contingent this weekend with his tweet, but personally, I loved it.

People have been complaining lately that too many NASCAR storylines revolve around off-track issues. Well, guess what? This drama was about on-track stuff. It was about performance and rules and had everything to do with the playoffs.

That’s great! I mean, it resulted in Kyle Busch tweeting “STFU” with a crying emoji to another driver. Wild! NASCAR needs rivalries like this to add spice to the races.

Honestly, it’s great to see Busch and Keselowski not even pretending to be civil. All the drivers these days seem like they are way too tight, with the group text and drivers council and bike rides and wives/kids hanging out. It’s nice for them to get along, but it’s refreshing for everyone else when there’s some real sourness between two of the top competitors. It makes it more fun to watch.

And by the way, there was nothing wrong with what Keselowski tweeted. Politicking for manufacturer advantages has been a part of NASCAR for a long time, and that’s what he was obviously doing.

5. Burnout talk

OK, let’s have a chat about burnouts for a second. It seems like NASCAR race winners routinely destroy their cars on purpose these days — and not just in the name of celebration.

Today’s burnouts are intentionally designed to cause tire blowouts, which mess up the back of the car and make it harder for NASCAR to run the cars through post-race tech inspection.

A decade ago, drivers did kickass, smoky burnouts without blowing off the rear quarterpanels. But that’s not the case now. It seems like every winner does it, and some drivers (coughDennyHamlincough) have even tapped the wall in the process.

We know this makes a difference because cars can be illegal if they’re off a thousandth of an inch, and destroying part of the car removes that area from scrutiny. Fair or not, the appearance is not good.

NASCAR has indicated it does not want to step in and outlaw burnouts or institute a rule that limits them. After all, fans might complain that NASCAR officials are the fun police and they’re taking yet another enjoyable part away from the sport.

But drivers are smart enough to know how to do a burnout without shredding their tires. So perhaps in the interest of maintaining a level playing field for the playoffs, NASCAR should decide burnouts themselves are OK — but tire blowouts are not.

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DraftKings Fantasy NASCAR Picks: Chicago

I’m playing DraftKings this season and will be posting my picks here each week. Disclosure: If you want to play and sign up using this link, DraftKings will give my website a commission.

Last race’s results: Played $4 Brake Pad contest. Finished 1,080th of 2,100. Won $0.

Season results: $84 wagered, $95 won in 21 contests.

This week’s contest: $4 Brake Pad game (single entry).

Chicago picks:

— Martin Truex Jr. ($10,700): I expect him to lead laps and have a top-three finish, as he’s done so often this season. There’s no reason to think anything will change now, so Truex is being chosen as a hammer here.

— Kyle Busch ($10,600): Fastest in final practice. Fastest qualifying lap in relation to the rest of the field in years. Second-fastest in 10-lap average for final practice. Busch figures to dominate much of the race, perhaps leading every lap in the first stage, for starters. Take the points.

— Daniel Suarez ($7,800): I’m going with another Toyota, because it’s an intermediate track and there’s no reason to think their performance will suddenly drop off. Suarez is the cheapest top-running Toyota car; qualified 13th and had the 11th-fastest 10-lap average in final practice.

— Kasey Kahne ($7,700): The Hendrick cars don’t look great so far this weekend, and it’s not a good sign to see Kahne qualify 25th. However, that gives you an opportunity for place differential should he move up into the top 15 — which, let’s face it, needs to happen for his continued playoff chances.

— Austin Dillon ($7,300): Dillon is looking strong this weekend. He had the second-fastest single lap in final practice and was sixth in 10-lap average, which makes him a great bargain for this price. He starts a little high for fantasy purposes — ninth — but top-10 finishes at Darlington and Michigan show that he is running better lately.

— Michael McDowell ($5,800): Having Kyle Busch and Truex in the same lineup requires a deep cut somewhere. The good news for picking McDowell here is he qualified 30th, but has an average finish of 21.2 this year. Yes, he was slowest among all drivers in 10-lap average for final practice — NOT GOOD! But there’s a lot of potential positions to be picked up, which makes this a reasonable selection to help you with an expensive lineup.

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Roger Penske on whether NASCAR team is behind the Toyotas

If you somehow missed it, Team Penske driver Brad Keselowski sounded the alarm bells Friday about what he perceives to be Toyota’s massive advantage in the Cup Series right now. His tweet was met with a hostile response from the Toyota camp.

So how does Roger Penske feel about Keselowski’s tweet and his team going up against Toyota? Fortunately, he was at Sonoma on Saturday to answer that question.

“Look, I’m not on Twitter,” he told a couple reporters when asked about the situation. “I don’t regard that the way I run my business, and Brad has his own thoughts that are probably not the feeling of the team at this point.

“Toyota has done a great job in preparation for the last part of the series. I think we had good cars early on. I think we’re a little bit behind right now. But it doesn’t mean we’re giving up, for sure.”

Penske cited Joey Logano’s seventh-place qualifying effort on Friday and Ryan Blaney’s playoff potential as evidence the team is making gains. But he stopped himself after starting to go down that road.

“I’m not one that decides to talk about my pluses and minuses in the media, to be honest with you,” he said.

OK, but what about politicking to NASCAR for help when one manufacturer starts to get ahead, as was commonplace in the old days? Does he see a purpose in that?

“NASCAR has the responsibility to have a level playing field, and if they determine that it isn’t, they can look at engines, they can look at aero and those things, and I’m sure they’re doing that right now,” he said. “But at this point, we all started with the same set of rules. Toyota has gotten hot here at the end and we’ve got to acknowledge that professionally.

“On the other hand, we’re not going to give up.”

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NASCAR Playoff Rules, explained

NASCAR changed its Chase — er, playoffs — format again this year, so don’t feel bad if you’re not an expert on the all the rules yet.

Some of you might be embarrassed to ask questions on Twitter or admit you don’t understand what can be a confusing system. If so, that’s OK! Hopefully this will help.

Here’s a quick primer on the playoff format this year:

— Overall, the format hasn’t changed much. Just like the previous two seasons, there are three rounds and a championship race. Four drivers are eliminated after each round, so the playoff field will be whittled from 16 to 12 to eight to four over the course of the first nine weeks.

— In another carryover from the previous format, a race win by a playoff driver will advance that driver into the next round. Even though “playoff points” have been a big talking point this year, it’s still win-and-in for each round. Then the remaining spots will be filled by non-winners based on points.

— Speaking of playoff points, those represent the biggest and most important change from the previous system. Drivers collected playoff points all season (one point for a stage win and five points for a race win, plus bonus points based on finishing in the top 10 of the regular season standings). Now that the playoffs have begun, drivers will start each round with that amount of points as long as they’re still in the competition.

Let’s pause to take a quick look at how many points each driver has heading into Chicago:

  1. Martin Truex Jr. — 53
  2. Kyle Larson — 33
  3. Kyle Busch — 29
  4. Brad Keselowski — 19
  5. Jimmie Johnson — 17
  6. Kevin Harvick — 15
  7. Denny Hamlin — 13
  8. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. — 10
  9. Ryan Blaney — 8
  10. Chase Elliott — 6
  11. Ryan Newman — 5
  12. Kurt Busch — 5
  13. Kasey Kahne — 5
  14. Austin Dillon — 5
  15. Matt Kenseth — 5
  16. Jamie McMurray — 3

— It’s important to remember drivers can continue to add to their playoff points in each round. So if Truex wins two stages at Chicagoland, he will start Round 2 with 55 points instead of 53. It doesn’t matter whether he “uses them up” or not; they will be there to start the round if he’s still in the playoffs.

— Of course, the rules for the championship race at Homestead are different. That race is still a winner-take-all, no-points event for the final four drivers. Yeah, there will still be stages at Homestead, but they don’t matter for the final four drivers (they’re just for drivers still battling for fifth in the point standings). So even though Truex has a ton of playoff points, that won’t matter in the final race. It might help him get there, but it won’t help him win the title.

— A question I’ve seen a lot on Twitter this week is what happens if a race winner — or the champion — has an encumbered finish in an elimination race? Technically, NASCAR would have to change the outcome of the round (somewhat likely) or the championship (very unlikely). NASCAR would disagree with this, but if the championship car was found to be illegal several days later, I don’t think we’d ever hear about it. Officials do not want to strip the title and award it to someone else days after the race has already concluded.

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NASCAR drivers turning to Twitch to stream video games

By Cindy The Intern

If you follow Brad Keselowski on Twitter, you might know he likes to play video games. And if you tend to stay up late at night, you might also know that he also streams himself playing games on Twitch.

But Keselowski isn’t the only driver who streams on Twitch, the live video platform that shows video games and allows the gamer to comment while playing. Xfinity Series driver Garrett Smithley also streams.

“I actually started streaming last year on iRacing,” Smithley said via email. “I wanted to start to give my fans some more opportunities for interaction, and I thought streaming was a good platform. I noticed Brad Keselowski playing PUBG (PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds), and then he started streaming. Fans started to ask if I would stream, so I tried it out and liked it.”

PUBG, released earlier this year, is a battle royale style game in which 100 players use a variety of weapons to kill other players and be the last one standing.

“PUBG is by far my favorite game right now. My photographer, Danny Hanson, got me into H1Z1 (Just Survive), which is the same concept as PUBG. We had played DayZ in the past, because we loved survival-type games, but it was always slow-paced. PUBG has gotten really big really fast, and I love the direction they are taking it.”

Smithley said he plans to stream himself on iRacing again at some point, as well as Counter-Strike: Source. And on his streaming bucket list: A throwback GameCube game of some kind.

Like many gamers, Smithley has been playing as long as he can remember — dating back to messing with Tetris, golf and Super R.C. Pro-Am on his dad’s old Game Boy.

After that, he moved to PC games like G-Nome and MechWarrior 3 and stuck with PC and GameCube over Xbox and PlayStation.

Smithley doesn’t spend all his time during streams just playing games, though. The 25-year-old sees streaming as another way that he can connect with NASCAR fans, so during his streams, Smithley likes reading the chat and interacting with fan questions.

“I can’t speak for others, but for me, (streaming is) an incredible opportunity to reach out to the younger NASCAR fans,” he said. “I love video games, and streaming has become very popular with my generation. It’s a way I can spend time with fans, bring new fans in and hopefully help build a new younger fan base for NASCAR.

“I’m incredibly new to streaming, and I’m working on making the content the best and most entertaining I can make it. I have a lot of ideas for it in the future, and I hope I’m able to grow it into something really cool to go alongside my racing.”