Jesse Love went from third to first on the overtime restart to win Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity race at Rockingham Speedway, the first Xfinity race at the historic track since 2004.
Love led 53 laps and stretched his fuel over the final 96 laps to collect his second win of the season and third career Xfinity win. He did so before a sellout crowd at Rockingham.
Sammy Smith, who lost the lead to Love on the overtime restart, finished a season-best second. Smith collected the $100,000 bonus for winning the Xfinity Dash 4 Cash. It was his first Dash 4 Cash bonus.
Parker Retzlaff overcame a flat tire with about 100 laps to go to finish third, tying his career-best Xfinity result.
Harrison Burton placed fourth, and Brennan Poole completed the top five. Alpha Prime Racing had two cars finish in the top five for the first time with Retzlaff and Poole.
Kasey Kahne, making his first NASCAR start since 2018, finished 15th after he was collected in two separate incidents.
Saturday’s race was slowed by 14 cautions for 83 laps and two red flags in the 256-lap race.
Katherine Legge failed to qualify for the race but replaced JJ Yeley in a car for Joey Gase Motorsports. She finished last in the 38-car field after a crash. William Sawalich made contact with Legge’s car as she was being lapped. The contact spun Legge’s car into the path of Kahne’s car, causing damage to the right front of Kahne’s vehicle.
Stage 1 win: Nick Sanchez
Stage 2 win: Dean Thompson
Next: The series races at 4 p.m. ET Saturday, April 26 at Talladega Superspeedway on the CW Network.
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