BRISTOL, Tenn. — Benefitting from a split-second late race strategy decision, veteran Aric Almirola held off a mightily-motivated field to claim the win in Friday night‘s Food City 300 NASCAR Xfinity Series Playoffs opener at Bristol Motor Speedway.
While running second to the series‘ championship leader, Connor Zilisch, when a caution flag flew with 36 laps remaining, Almirola watched Zilisch pull onto pit road for fresh tires, and instead of following him into the pits as his crew expected, Almirola abruptly pulled his No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota back on track at the last moment.
RELATED: Race results | At-track photos: Bristol
He then had to out-run, out-maneuver and out-last the competition — several on fresher tires — in the closing laps to claim his second victory of the season and ninth of his career. A former full-time Cup Series driver who is now competing part-time in the Xfinity Series with Gibbs, Almirola ultimately beat Haas Factory Team driver Sheldon Creed to the checkered flag by .381 seconds — marking a series record 15th runner-up finish for Creed, who is still racing for his first career win.
“Just tired of getting beat by those guys, I figured I‘d try my chances with the lead,” Almirola said of his race-winning pit strategy decision. “They‘ve been so fast and they fire off so fast on new tires and I just didn‘t think I could beat them straight up on new tires. It took me about 20 laps to get going, so I thought my best chance was to stay out on old tires.
“We watched the last two or three races here and saw how the nine-car with [driver] Noah Gragson win with like a 100 laps on his tires,” added Almirola, whose No. 19 JGR Toyota is racing for the owner‘s championship. “So, I decided to stay out when they said pit.”
Creed passed his Haas Factory Team teammate Sam Mayer with a lap remaining but was unable to catch up to Almirola. JR Motorsports driver Carson Kvapil finished fourth, followed by his teammate Zilisch, who was trying to become the first driver in series history to win five consecutive races.
Zilisch‘s fifth-place finish, however, still resulted in a series record, giving him 15 consecutive top-five showings. He has a series-best nine victories on the season and maintains a 32-point advantage over another JR Motorsports teammate, Friday‘s race polesitter and reigning series champion Justin Allgaier, who finished sixth and earned a series-best 11th stage win.
“It was a good day, just so hard those decisions at the end because whatever you do, everyone else is going to do the opposite,” the 19-year-old rookie Zilisch said. “We had a really good day with our WeatherTech Chevrolet, got further up above the [playoff] cutoff line and we‘ll move on to next week and keep on building.”
Harrison Burton, Christian Eckes, Jeremy Clements and Brennan Poole rounded out a top 10 that included three rookies. The top seven finishers were all playoff drivers. Ten of the 12 playoff competitors finished 14th or higher.
Sammy Smith, who went into the race ranked sixth in the playoff standings, took the biggest championship hit of the night. He suffered an early problem with his No. 8 JR Motorsports Chevrolet and had to retire to the garage only 56 laps into the race with an engine issue. He‘s now ranked 12th and last among the playoff contenders, 24 points below the cutline with two races remaining in this opening round.
“Unfortunate situation,” Smith said. “Very disappointed for the team. Worked so hard and to not really have a shot was frustrating. We‘ll just have to do our best the next two weeks in the Playoffs and see.”
MORE: Xfinity Series standings
Beyond Zilisch and Allgaier, Mayer is now 50 points off the lead, and Kvapil is 69 back. Burton, in fifth place, is now separated from 10th-place Taylor Gray by only six points.
Richard Childress Racing‘s Jesse Love and rookie Nick Sanchez are the first drivers below the cutline — both three points behind Gray. Love‘s veteran teammate, Austin Hill, is 16 points back with Smith dropping into that 12th slot after round one of the seven-race title run.
The series holds its second of the three Round of 12 playoff races on Saturday, Sept. 27, at Kansas Speedway (4 p.m. ET, The CW, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Almirola is the defending race winner.
NOTE: Post-race inspection in the Xfinity Series garage concluded without issue, confirming Almirola as the winner.
Read the full article here