KANSAS CITY, Kan. – Ross Chastain finally broke through and won his first race of the season on Sunday at Kansas Speedway.

Chastain missed out on the NASCAR Playoffs this season, but he spoiled the party on in the Hollywood Casino 400 when he held off Playoff contender, William Byron to capture his first Kansas victory.

“Look, there’s been times this year where we couldn’t have disrupted the minnow pond outside of Darlington, let alone a cup race. It’s hard,” Chastain said. “It’s really tough.

“To come and do this, there are times where I didn’t think after practicing, qualifying we had what it took. I thought we have been way stronger here in the past. It didn’t feel great all day, but our Kubota Chevy, it was better as the rubber went down, and the adjustments were great.”

The last time Chastain visited Victory Lane was in last year’s Championship at Phoenix Raceway, and while the winless streak hasn’t been long, the Trackhouse Racing No. 1 Chevrolet team would have liked to have had a better season. So far this year, Chastain has earned six top-five and 12 top-10 finishes, and he also accumulated three DNFs.

“But the winless streaks are something that get talked about,” Chastain said. “Ours wasn’t quite enough to get talked about. If we didn’t win this year, I’m sure the room would have talked about it.

“I learned that last year we won Phoenix, and I had the whole offseason to kind of let it marinate. I just let that sink in, and I thought it would be easier. I really did. I thought we had found some stuff, but that wasn’t the case. That will not be the mindset through this offseason.”

Runner-up finisher, William Byron tried a Hail Mary dive into Turn 3 on the final lap, but he wasn’t close enough to overtake Chastain.

“I think just him (Chastain) being able to get out front and control his pace definitely helped,” Byron said. “Just kind of being stuck in his dirty air, it seemed like the top got really dominant there at the very end. The shade just started creeping in and it was just hard to work other lanes. That is probably some of it, but just a little bit here and there. Had a good restart and that was nice to go from third to second and to be able to chase him down, but just needed a little more.”

Although he came up short, Byron had a very good points day. The Hendrick Motorsports driver won Stage 1 and finished fourth in Stage 2. He now departs Kansas with the point lead, 34 points ahead of the Round of 8 cutline.

Rounding out the top-five was Martin Truex Jr., Playoff contender Ryan Blaney and Ty Gibbs. Alex Bowman finished sixth, followed by Christopher Bell who bounced off the wall on several occasions, Denny Hamlin, Chase Elliott and Zane Smith.

There were 30 lead changes among 15 drivers. Bell led a race high of 122 laps, followed by Chastain who led 52 laps.

The caution came out on 10 occasions for 47 laps. The 267-lap race was rough for Playoff contenders.

Kyle Larson salvaged a 26^th place finish after hitting the Turn 2 wall hard on Lap 20.

“It was just a long day for our No. 5 HendrickCars.com Chevy team,” Larson said. “Our team did a really good job fighting and clawing to get better where we ended up.”

Austin Cindric finished a disappointing 34^th after crashing into the backstretch wall on Lap 158. He’s now last in the Playoff standings, 29 points back from the cutline.

“It was a really frustrating result,” Cindric said. “I thought the team did a really great job with adjustments overnight and we had a really fast car today and just took ourselves out of it on pit road. Obviously we had some contact on the back straightaway and I took us out of the race, really. That is unacceptable for the position we are in and especially with the speed we have had in the car.

As Playoff contender, Chase Briscoe was trying to stay on the lead lap late in the race, Kyle Busch came up behind him, lost control and crashed while leading the race. Briscoe continued to struggle as he finished 24^th.

“I couldn’t really run on the wall so I was trying to give him (Busch) a car width and a couple inches and saw him get loose as soon as he got to my right rear,” Briscoe said. “It didn’t feel like I was trying to do anything. I literally left him the top lane. These cars as soon as you get off to the right, especially here when you are running the wall, they just get really loose. I hate it for him.”

Busch was looking to capture his first win of the season, but the Lap 237 crash ended his day.

“I don’t know.. I am sure he (Briscoe) was racing to stay on the lead lap with whoever was in front of him there. Granted they have a race to run, but back in the old days when you were under 30 to go or whatever it was, lap traffic would kind of lay over and give you a lane and let the leaders race. I just wasn’t getting that, so I tried to force my hand into getting that and get to his outside, and for whatever reason, it just gave all the air in all the wrong places and I spun out.”

Following Kansas the NASCAR Playoff point standings are as followed: William Byron (+34), Ryan Blaney (+28), Christopher Bell (+28), Kyle Larson (+18), Denny Hamlin +11), Alex Bowman (+8), Chase Elliott (+4), Joey Logano (+4), Tyler Reddick (-4), Daniel Suarez (-14), Chase Briscoe (-25) and Austin Cindric (-29).

The second race of the Round of 12 will be held at Talladega Superspeedway on Sunday, Oct. 6. The YellaWood 500 will broadcast live on NBC at 2 p.m. ET.

Photo Credit: Chris Graythen/Getty Images