2021 series champion Kyle Larson passed Tyler Reddick coming off pit road and led the final 55 laps at Darlington to win the opening race of the playoffs.

The next leg of the round of 16 heads to Kansas Motorspeedway this weekend. 

It was Larson’s third victory this season, but first on the track where he had three seconds and two thirds in 11 previous Cup Series races. Reddick led 90 laps and Denny Hamlin won the first two stages and led 177 of the 367 laps, but had to pit twice for vibrations and wound up 25th. 

Playoff drivers took the first seven spots. Reddick was second, followed by Chris Buescher, William Byron, Ross Chastain, Brad Keselowski and Wallace. 

The rest of the playoff field had Kyle Busch 11th, Joey Logano 12th, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. 16th, Martin Truex Jr. 18th, Kevin Harvick 19th, pole-sitter Christopher Bell 23rd and Michael McDowell 32nd.

Bubb Wallace won last year. 

Practice and qualifying are at 11:45 Saturday morning and race time is 2 pm on Sunday.

Denny Hamlin, one of several Cup Series regulars in the field, passed Austin Hill on the final restart to win in overtime for his sixth Xfinity Series victory at Darlington.

Xfinity takes to Kansas this weekend as well.

Hill was second, followed by John Hunter Nemechek, Cole Custer and Josh Berry. Hill leads Nemechek by 23 points in the standings, with Justin Allgaier another 10 points back. They are the only three with a chance to claim the regular-season title. 

Riley Herbst finished sixth and passed Parker Kligerman by one point for the final spot in the 12-driver playoff with one race left to decide the postseason field.

Practice and qualifying is at 9 am and race time is 2 pm Saturday.

The Craftsman Truck Series takes to Kansas this weekend as well. Grant Enfinger led 95 of 175 laps and passed Carson Hocevar on the 159th lap to win in Milwaukee. His third victory of the season advanced him into the next round of the playoffs.

Hocevar, Christian Eckes and Cory Heim all clinched berths in the next playoff round on points, along with Ty Majeski, the winner of the first playoff race. 

Heim leads all drivers with 15 top-10 finishes despite have run just 17 races while the rest of the title contenders have raced 18 times.

Practice and qualifying is at 2:30 pm Friday. Race time is 8 pm Friday night.