RACE: Hollywood Casino 400
DATE: Sunday, October 18, 2015
TRACK: Kansas Speedway
LENGTH: 1.5-mile tri-oval
TV: NBC, 2:15 p.m. ET
RADIO: MRN/SIRIUSXM

Notes

CHASE UPDATE: Dale Earnhardt Jr., driver of the No. 88 Halo 5: Master Chief Chevrolet SS, finished 28th at Charlotte Motor Speedway last weekend after multiple incidents in which he made contact with the outside wall. He currently ranks 11th in the 2015 Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup standings, 32 points out of first and 19 points behind the eighth-place cutoff for transferring to the Eliminator Round. There are two races remaining in the Contender Round, Kansas Speedway and Talladega Superspeedway, where Earnhardt finished third and first, respectively, in the spring. 

HALO MEDIA EVENT: Earnhardt, along with three additional players, will challenge Jamie McMurray and his team of four to a four-on-four Halo 5: Guardians tournament on Friday from 3 to 3:15 p.m. local time in the drivers meeting tent behind the Kansas Speedway media center. He, along with McMurray and Kiki Wolfkill, studio head of the Halo Interactive Entertainment and Channel at 343 Industries, will be available for interviews from 3:15 to 3:30 p.m. local time. Halo 5: Guardians – which hits retail shelves on Oct. 27, exclusively for Xbox One – is the next highly anticipated installment in the Halo franchise. Featuring the most ambitious, robust and epic Halo campaign and multiplayer experience ever created, Halo 5: Guardians tells the ambiguous story of the Master Chief; missing in action and his loyalty in question, amidst a mysterious and unstoppable force that has threatened the galaxy.

HALO 5: GUARDIANS PAINT SCHEME: Xbox and 343 Industries have partnered with Hendrick Motorsports and Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates to bring Halo 5: Guardians to life with two Halo-branded paint schemes at Kansas Speedway. Earnhardt, NASCAR’s 12-time most popular driver, will be driving a Master Chief-inspired scheme, and Jamie McMurray will be in a Spartan Locke-inspired machine. The Master Chief and Spartan Locke paint schemes are echoed in the hunter versus hunted narrative from the Halo 5: Guardians storyline.

SUCCESS ON 1.5-MILE TRACKS: This season, Earnhardt has had strong runs on 1.5-mile tracks, earning an average finish of 9.6 in eight races. At Kansas, the Kannapolis, North Carolina, native has an average finish of 15.8 in 18 races, but in the last four years, excluding a 39th-place result due to a trip to the garage after contact with the wall in last fall’s race, when he led 45 laps, his average finish has improved to 7.9. While he has yet to win in Kansas City, Kansas, he’s earned three top-five and five top-10 finishes in the eight most recent races at the venue.

LOOP DATA: According to NASCAR's loop data statistics, Earnhardt ranks second among all active drivers in the “closers” category, which tallies the number of position a driver improves in the last 10 percent of the race, gaining an average of 1.7 spots for a total of 24 during the last 10 years at Kansas Speedway. In that span, the driver of the No. 88 Halo 5: Master Chief Chevy SS is scored sixth in average speed late in a run, eighth in green-flag passes (1,005), and ranks ninth among drivers in fastest laps run (139) and 10th in laps led at the 1.5-mile oval (124). 

2016 NATIONWIDE PAINT SCHEME REVEALED: Nationwide has revealed the No. 88 Chevrolet that Earnhardt will pilot in 13 races in 2016. The Nationwide paint scheme was inspired by one of Earnhardt’s favorite cars, “The Grey Ghost,” driven by Buddy Baker when he won the Daytona 500 in 1980. Earnhardt surprised a few lucky fans, who also got to help him unveil his 2016 Nationwide Chevrolet SS.

Quotes

Earnhardt Jr. on racing at Kansas: “On the last couple of trips to Kansas, we’ve been able to get against the fence. It’s a fun race -- I love running up there against the wall through the corners. You can get some great runs on the guys trying to work the bottom, so it turns into a really fun race when the track gets that wide. You’ve got to work that top groove when it comes in. If your car is working on the bottom, that’s great, but you might have to go to the top to get around guys, and get out from behind them and get some clean air.”

Earnhardt Jr. on strategy in the Chase: “You’d like to go in and get a win as soon as you can in this format, and get yourself locked in to take the pressure off. Our guys have been bringing some great cars to the racetrack. We’ve run good at these next few tracks that we’re going to. I’m just going to take it one corner at a time and try to do the best I can on the track, and hopefully we have smooth stops and don’t have any issues with the car.”