NASCAR may have lost Jeff Gordon to the television booth this year and Tony Stewart is about to depart the scene as a driver, but all three national series feature young stars having breakout seasons.

In the Sprint Cup Series, Chase Elliott has accumulated more top-10 finishes (seven in 10 starts) than any of his more pedigreed Hendrick Motorsports teammates. He ranks 10th in the Cup Series point standings.

Elliott finished ninth Saturday night in the GoBowling.com 400 at Kansas Speedway, leaving the mantle of top rookie to Ryan Blaney in the Wood Brothers Ford. Blaney earned a fifth-place finish, nearly matching the career-best fourth place he achieved last spring at Talladega during one of a handful of starts he made for the Woods in 2015.

Taking advantage of the Woods' closer technical partnership with Team Penske, Blaney has been a solid performer throughout 2016. Saturday's run marked his fifth finish in the top 11 this year; if the Chase started right now, both Elliott and Blaney (16th in the Cup standings) would qualify on points.

Blaney qualified the No. 21 Ford seventh at Kansas and rarely dropped out of the top 10. He thought his car was more competitive in the first half of the race than the second, though he acknowledged that he and crew chief Jeremy Bullins started making progress catching up to the changing track conditions near the end.

"It was definitely a solid day for us and something to build off of," Blaney said. "We started off the race really, really good, and I thought that's when we were the strongest -- when the sun was up and the track was a little bit hotter.

"As the night came and it cooled off a little bit, we lost a little bit of speed," he continued. "I felt like everyone kind of gained grip and got better and we lost a little bit. It took us a while to try to get that back. We got it closer towards the end there, but it was still a decent finish for us. When you can run with the best guys, you learn a lot and that was a great learning experience."

Ryan Blaney would be in the Chase on points if it started today. Sean Gardner/Getty Images

Blaney went through Saturday dealing with the distraction of knowing that his father, former NASCAR racer Dave Blaney, was injured Friday night in a sprint car race at Eldora Speedway. Dave Blaney was not significantly injured and was released from a local hospital in the early hours of Saturday morning after undergoing X-rays and CAT scans.

The elder Blaney's accident occurred while Ryan Blaney was qualifying his car at Kansas. Getting the news via text and Twitter when he returned to his motor home was the biggest shock.

"I'm like, 'What's going on?' " he related. "It's amazing how you find out what's actually going on on Twitter from other people and getting texts or calls or something like that. So when I initially saw it, I was a little worried because they made it sound worse than what it was on Twitter, but I called one of his crew guys and he told me he was gonna be all right and he was alert and awake and everything like that.

"I think he got home actually in time for the race, so I think he was able to watch the race," Ryan added. "He got his bell rung pretty good, but he's all right."

With his first top-5 finish of the season under his belt, Blaney turns his attention to Charlotte Motor Speedway, site of the Sprint All-Star weekend and the Coca-Cola 600. He's hopeful that a solid run at Kansas will propel the 21 team to even greater heights to close out the month of May.

"Even though it's a different track and a different surface, you can definitely learn things of what these cars do when tracks cool off and it goes from day to night," he said. "So there are things we can sit back and apply for the 600 in a few weeks."

Xfinity Series: Erik Jones ready to make a run

The NASCAR Xfinity Series had the weekend off, but there are a number of compelling stories in the top development series.

Elliott Sadler's win a week ago at Talladega propelled the veteran into the Xfinity points lead and also locked him into the Chase later this year. But Sadler will have to hold off a pack of young chargers if he wants to secure his first career Xfinity crown.

The only other driver who has locked into the Xfinity Chase is 19-year-old Erik Jones of Joe Gibbs Racing. Jones gained entry by winning at Richmond International Raceway a couple weeks back, and many observers view the driver of the No. 20 JGR Toyota as the championship favorite.

Erik Jones is looking to improve his pit stops as he pursues an Xfinity Series title to go with the one he won last season in the Camping World Truck Series. Sarah Crabill/Getty Images

Jones has finished third or better in five of the nine Xfinity races this year, but coming home 15th or worse (including a 31st and 34th) has left him seventh in the points race. But given the new Xfinity Chase format being implemented this year, that ultimately doesn't matter right now.

"Points are kind of out the window, and it's a good thing, honestly," Jones told ESPN.com's Bob Pockrass. "Our season has been very back-and-forth. It either seems like we're winning the race or running out of fuel or getting in a wreck. It's kind of nice to have that security and blanket of being locked in.

"We're still pretty focused on the season in front of us and winning some races," he added. "A lot of focus is put on the last eight races for us. ... The car rotations are being swapped so we have our best cars for those [Chase] races of the year where before it was a little bit different, just making sure we were going to get in the Chase. We still want to win some more races."

Jones said that one-third of the way into his first full season of Xfinity with JGR, he's becoming comfortable with the routine. Last year, he paired a part-time Xfinity schedule with a successful full-time run for the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series title.

The increased focus on the Xfinity championship this year has allowed Jones to work on the fine details that differentiate a championship driver and team.

"Most of what I work on, personally for myself, is we call it special teams -- getting on and off pit road, making sure we're spending the least amount of time there, giving up the least amount of time," he said. "On the racetrack, I've always been fast. We need to make sure we're not making mistakes -- not making mistakes getting on pit road, getting off, no penalties.

"That's always been a part of my game, I think, that I've needed to improve on," he noted. "It's not a natural ability that people come with. It's something that's learned."

Camping World Truck Series: William Byron is latest young winner

With Blaney (age 22) and Elliott (20) making an impression at the Cup level and Jones setting up as an Xfinity front-runner at 19, the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series is equally stocked with young talent.

Just 18, William Byron broke through to claim his first Truck win Friday night at Kansas in the Toyota Tundra 250.

Byron led more than 30 laps and was in front by nearly five seconds when Tyler Reddick (another Truck Series young gun) spun with four laps remaining to bring out the caution and set up overtime.

William Byron has already notched his first NASCAR national series win and he hasn't even graduated from high school yet. Brian Lawdermilk/Getty Images

Inexperience showed as Byron spun the wheels of his Kyle Busch Motorsports Toyota on the restart, allowing Johnny Sauter and Ben Rhodes to take positions.

Sauter swerved dramatically exiting Turn 2 to try to break the tow, but it disrupted his line into Turn 3 and Rhodes attempted to pass on the inside. The two trucks collided and spun to the outside wall, allowing Byron to lead defending Truck Series champion Matt Crafton across the line under yellow to claim his first win.

"It was crazy the last couple of restarts and I had the lead there on the green-flag run and I was really just praying for no cautions, but you have to earn it," Byron said. "There are so many ebbs and flows to the race and it's just really important to keep your head in it and that was really evident tonight with the way the last 30 laps went -- getting the lead and then on that last restart falling back to third. You just can't give up."

Byron said he didn't realize until after he won that he had never done a burnout.

"You can't really imagine what that's like until you do it," he said. "I didn't even know how to do a burnout, so I just kind of found the gears and watched the smoke in the back and it was just really cool. I've visualized this for a little bit, but I never thought it would come like this.

"It's really still sinking in, and it's going to take a little bit."

Byron said he missed his senior prom at Charlotte Country Day School but admitted he is glad he'll be able to take part in commencement on May 27 -- though it must be said he has a leg up on many of his classmates in terms of advancing his career.

"It's a good balance between going to school and being a completely normal kid," he said. "People really have no idea what's going on when we get to the racetrack.

"The cool part is that I like to just kind of do my business at school and keep my grades up and then get to the racetrack and enjoy myself."