NASCAR QNA: What if Kyle Larson and Chris Buescher had tied at Kansas? We have an answer

Who’d get the Kansas trophy if Chris Buescher had been an inch faster?

Assuming you’re asking how NASCAR would’ve broken a tie, guess what: Kyle Larson would’ve still gone to Victory Lane.

It used to be, any margin of victory under one second was practically considered a photo finish, but then we started getting finishes that involved the second number to the right of the decimal point, and now we’re three notches over, in the thousandths-of-a-second world.

If we get to the fourth number, we’re probably looking at a tie. And in case of that rarest of rarities, the winner would be the driver who led the most laps (Kyle led 63, Chris 54).

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If that’s a tie, then it’s who was runner-up for the most laps, third for the most laps, etc., until the tie is broken.

Has there ever been a worse way to finish second?

Buescher's car number flashed atop the scoring pylon at the finish, so that's a bad beat.

But Regan Smith clearly won his first Cup race in 2008 at Talladega, only to have it snatched away for going below the yellow line to pass Tony Stewart at the stripe. Regan had been forced down there by Tony’s block, but the win was still taken away and that one had to hurt.

But consider Johnny Beauchamp after the inaugural Daytona 500 in 1959. He spent three days as the winner before enough photo evidence proved Lee Petty had beaten him to the stripe by a full bumper — compared to Kansas, Petty’s Daytona victory margin looked like a rout.

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: NASCAR has a plan for ties; would Kyle Larson have still won Kansas?