Denny Hamlin and Kyle Larson ran 1-2 last week at Dover and enter this weekend in the top two slots of the odds board as NASCAR goes to the Jayhawk State.

Turns out, they’re also the two best at Kansas over the past three years and six trips to that other Kansas City.

But simply betting on winners is for losers, especially when there are so many other options out there. Let’s look at some of the options and put together a plan before putting the thumb to the “place bet” button there on the Hard Rock app.

DRIVER POWER RANKINGS NASCAR weekly Top 10: Did Denny Hamlin leapfrog William Byron? Is Kyle Busch back in town?

NASCAR odds for Kansas this weekend

• +350: Kyle Larson
• +375: Denny Hamlin
• +575: Tyler Reddick
• +650: William Byron
• +700: Martin Truex Jr.
• +850: Christopher Bell
• +900: Chase Elliott
• +1300: Bubba Wallace
• +1400: Ty Gibbs
• +1600: Ryan Blaney
• +1750: Kyle Busch, Ross Chastain, Alex Bowman
• +3000: Joey Logano
• +4000: Chris Buescher, Brad Keselowski
• +6000: Noah Gragson
• +7500: Daniel Suarez, Chase Briscoe
• +10000: Michael McDowell
• +15000: Josh Berry, Carson Hocevar
• +20000: Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Austin Cindric
• +25000: Jimmie Johnson, Austin Dillon, John Hunter Nemechek, Ryan Preece
• +50000: Zane Smith, Corey LaJoie, Daniel Hemric, Harrison Burton, Austin Hill
• +100000: Riley Herbst, Derek Kraus, Todd Gilliland, Justin Haley

NASCAR best bet

Ryan: I just want to point out somehow Todd Gilliland opened at 1,000 to 1. That’s bet $100, win $100,000. Seems steep for a guy who’s flashed some serious speed this year at times. But, alas, I’ll head over to the winning manufacturer tab where Toyota is somehow +100 to win despite claiming the last four events in the heartland and seven of the last nine. It’s not a huge payoff, but it’s a double up and about as safe a bet as you’ll ever have with one.

Ken: The 23XI team is listed third on the board (+500) for a team win, behind only Gibbs (+175) and Hendrick (+180). The two favorites have four cars each, but 23XI’s two-car team is piloted by Tyler Reddick and Bubba Wallace. Bubba has a win and two top-5s in his last six Kansas starts, while Tyler has two wins and 10 top-5s in his last three-plus seasons on intermediate tracks. And best of all, 23XI has won three of the last four Kansas races, all in the Next Gen car.

Top 10

Ryan: OK, really, Gilliland is +2500 for a top 10? But here’s a better value: John Hunter Nemechek is driving a Toyota and in his Xfinity career, he has two wins, three top 10s and an average finish of 3.3 in three starts. Plus, a $10 bet would bring back $120 at 12 to 1. And he drives a Toyota. Sign me up.

Ken: When your losses form a thick enough callus, a losing wager will simply bounce off without notice. In other words, I ain’t scared, but color me enticed. Austin Dillon is often decent at Kansas, and decent is all we need here. And it’s at +900 for a simple top 10.

Top 5

Ryan: Seemingly any Toyota is a good bet here and somehow, Martin Truex Jr. is at +125. Jump on it. Now.

Ken: Baby steps, you know? Last week, Ty Gibbs took a bite out of his recent mini-slump with a 10th at Dover. Next step is a top five in the heartland, at +190.

NASCAR Kansas predictions: Who ya got for the win?

Ryan: Back-to-back DNFs has Bubba Wallace coming in needing a good finish at a track in which he owns a win and has finished in the top 10 in three of the last four races. Oh, and he’s 13 to 1. I’ve heard enough.

Ken: There’s a guy out there who has become a familiar face in Victory Lane. It’s a guy who tends to space out his wins a tad. One of the guy’s wins this year came after finishing 35th the week before. Last week, this guy finished 33rd. Yep, Billy the Kid is my guy. Gimme William Byron at +650.

NASCAR DFS lineup

No we couldn’t quite fill an entire lineup with six Toyotas, but we did our best.

Remember, DraftKings daily fantasy lineup points are accrued by things like fastest laps, laps led and positions gained. Each entry is granted a $50,000 budget to afford six drivers.

Here’s our best crack at a six-driver lineup:

• John Hunter Nemechek ($6,000): See his track record and manufacturer above. Major value here.
• Daniel Suarez ($7,200): You’ve got to try and find value in these lineups and while Suarez’s Kansas numbers won’t wow you, he has five top 20s in his last six starts there and another would be about as good as you’re going to do in this price range.
• Noah Gragson ($7,400): Our guy comes in hot, riding back-to-back, top-10 finishes and he has a Kansas Xfinity Series win to his credit.
• Ross Chastain ($9,100): No, Ross isn’t driving a Toyota, but he has six straight top-15 finishes at Kansas and has scored stage points in eight of the last 10 stages there. His average finish of 9.8 is fifth best over the last six events at Kansas.
• Bubba Wallace ($9,500): The other car in the 23XI Racing stable and he also has a win here. Like Reddick, this one was easy.
• Tyler Reddick ($10,700): Won here last fall and his No. 45 has won three of the last four at Kansas with Kurt Busch and Bubba Wallace visiting Victory Lane in 2022. This one’s easy.

Some Kansas lawmakers see a chance to lure Kansas City’s two biggest professional sports teams across the Missouri border. But an effort to help the Super Bowl champion Chiefs and Major League Baseball’s Royals finance new stadiums in Kansas fizzed over concerns about how it might look to taxpayers. Members of the Republican-controlled Legislature pushed a bill Tuesday that would have allowed Kansas officials to authorize at least $1 billion in bonds to cover the entire cost of building each new stadium, paying the debt off with tax revenues generated in the area over 30 years. But GOP leaders didn’t bring it up for a vote before lawmakers adjourned their annual session early Wednesday, the AP reports.

Some opponents derided the plan as corporate welfare. Other lawmakers were receptive but didn’t want to pass the proposal until the Legislature approved a broad package of tax cuts for their constituents that Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly would sign—which didn’t happen, either. Legislators’ work on a plan began in earnest behind the scenes after voters on the Missouri side of the Kansas City metropolitan area decisively refused this month to extend a sales tax used to keep up the complex housing the Chiefs’ Arrowhead Stadium and the Royals’ Kauffman Stadium for more than 50 years. On Tuesday, Missouri Gov. Mike Parson told KSHB-TV that his administration would do everything it can to keep the Chiefs and Royals in his state.

The bill’s biggest champion, Kansas House Commerce Committee Chair Sean Tarwater, a Kansas City-area Republican, said supporters want to give the teams another option should they contemplate leaving Kansas City, which he said would be devastating to both states. “We need them to stay in the metroplex,” he said. The idea isn’t dead yet. Lawmakers expect Kelly to call a special session of the Legislature to try to get lawmakers to pass a tax plan that she’ll accept, and they could consider the stadium financing proposal then. “We just need a little time on it—we’ll be OK,” said Senate President Ty Masterson, a Wichita Republican. “We’re serious about trying to incentivize the Chiefs to come our direction.”

(More Kansas stories.)

WESTMORELAND — With a tornado headed directly toward their Westmoreland home, retirees Barry and Beverly Toburen sought refuge Tuesday with their three dogs in their bathroom.

The lights flickered off, came back on, then flickered off again, Barry Toburen told The Capital-Journal on Wednesday.

Then the tornado hit.

“My ears popped real loud, and everything went sideways there,” Toburen said. “It blew the door in on me, knocked me over on top of the wife, and then all of a sudden, it got real light. Obviously, it got light because the roof was gone. And then the sheetrock and everything came down on top of us.”

The Toburens’ home was in or near ground zero of the area hit by Tuesday’s tornado, which Pottawatomie County public information officer Becky Ryan said killed one person, caused minor injuries to three others, destroyed 22 homes and left 13 homes damaged but livable.

The name, age and gender of the person who died wasn’t being immediately released.

‘It looked like an umbilical cord’

Leslie Campbell said her husband videotaped the tornado on his cellphone as they watched it from a large hill.

The tornado “didn’t look like a tornado,” Campbell said. “It looked like an umbilical cord.”

“It was really long, and it didn’t touch down for a long time, and finally we saw it touch down,” she said.

Campbell said the homes damaged in Westmoreland included that of her mother-in-law, Linda Campbell.

Father and son sought shelter in hallway as tornado destroyed home

Ashley Van Gilder, a Westmoreland resident whose home was among those hit, described what happened as being “just devastating.”

She said she wasn’t home at the time, but her husband and their 8-year-old son Joseph were.

Joseph said he and his father sought shelter in a hallway of their home as the tornado loudly passed though.

“It was very weird,” he said. “We heard it touch down. It was cracking and stuff.”

Joseph’s father held him down as the tornado passed through, he said.

The family’s hallway has always been its “safe place” during times of potential severe weather, though members had talked earlier this week about potentially finding an alternative, Ashley VanGilder said.

Westmoreland family digs out from destroyed home

Barry Toburen, whose house was destroyed, said he had stood outside watching as the twister approached.

“The wife said, ‘Get your butt in the house!” he said.

Later, after crawling out from the wreckage, Barry Toburen said he realized that a large limb had been coming toward his head but stopped just short of it.

The tornado destroyed items that included Barry Toburen’s brand new lawnmower.

“I mowed the yard twice with it,” he said, with a laugh.

Barry Toburen said he managed to recover other items that included medals he’d been awarded while in the military.

He said he and his wife had gotten a motel room in nearby Wamego and were boarding their three dogs with a veterinarian there.

Another Westmoreland family is trying to salvage ‘sentimental things’

Jason Resser said he was away when the tornado went straight down the middle of the house where he has lived for 24 years.

“Everything in the core of the house is completely gone,” said Resser, who is manager of Westmoreland’s Dollar General Store.

He said he and his wife and children were looking Wednesday for “sentimental things” and furniture they could reuse.

Spokeswoman: 175 people turned out to help clean up debris

A team from the National Weather Service’s Topeka office was in Westmoreland on Wednesday assessing the damage and determining Tuesday’s tornado’s rating on the Enhanced Fujita scale used to measure tornado intensity, said Nathan Griesemer, a meteorologist for that office.

Storm surveys were also being conducted in Shawnee, Jefferson and Nemaha counties.

In addition to the houses that were hit, the tornado destroyed five outbuildings, including one each owned by Pottawatomie County and housing its recycling processing and noxious weed operations, said Ryan, the Pottawatomie County public information officer.

Pottawatomie County offices, which are based in Westmoreland, were closed to the public Wednesday.

More than 175 people were in Westmoreland on Wednesday helping clean up debris, Ryan said, describing that turnout as “amazing.”

Those helping clean up included at least 30 teachers and other employees from local schools.

The American Red Cross on Tuesday evening provided a temporary shelter at Rock Creek High School, Ryan said. That was being moved Wednesday to the Westmoreland Community Building, she said.

The Salvation Army was on hand providing meals, she said.

Tuesday’s tornado fatality was the first in Kansas since Richard D. Slade, 53, was killed Feb. 28, 2012, by a EF-2 tornado that struck his home at Harveyville in Wabaunsee County.

Contact Tim Hrenchir at threnchir@gannett.com or 785-213-5934.