Kyle Larson wins Texas NASCAR Xfinity race, filling in for injured Zilisch

Kyle Larson wasn’t even supposed to be racing in the NASCAR Xfinity Series this weekend. However, when news broke mid-week about Connor Zilisch being sidelined with a lower back injury (following a wreck at Talladega), Larson was the driver selected to fill the vacant JR Motorsports seat.

“Yeah, there was a lot of survival throughout that race,” said Larson. “Just dodging some wrecks, and the balance — we had to work on (it) quite a bit. It was fun. I felt like my car — if I could ever get to the lead, I could stretch out. But I just  couldn’t get by Justin [Allgaier]. He was doing a good job of just running where I needed to be. But thanks to JRM for letting me come run this thing here today. Obviously, wish Connor was in the car but it means a lot that they thought of me to call up and run this thing.”

Taylor Gray finished second, Riley Herbst third, Austin Hill fourth, and Sam Mayer fifth. Harrison Burton, Jesse Love, Ryan Sieg, Brandon Jones, and Jeb Burton filled out the remainder of the top ten. 

The run to the finish

The race was slowed by 11 cautions and ended in double overtime, but much like the Truck race on Friday, the first part of Stage 3 was fairly clean. The field reached green-flag pit stops with Larson going for the undercut on race leader Allgaier. This came right after the two nearly crashed in a sketchy moment while battling for the lead.

Allgaier stayed out a couple laps longer while in heavy traffic, which was all Larson needed to be able to easily leapfrog into the race lead. Allgaier, who had dominated most of the race, needed a caution. He did get one, but it was Allgaier himself involved. While catching a far slower Kris Wright, the two cars came together and Allgaier crashed into the frontstretch wall, ending his day.

On the ensuing restart, Larson took off with his closest competition now out of the race. However, much like Truck winner Corey Heim, was not allowed to comfortably cruise to victory. 

Driving the No. 17 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, Larson acolyte Corey Day spun, hitting the tire pack at the inside of Turn 4. This really shook things up as Larson led one group onto pit road while Hill led a few others who chose to stay out.

It was a frantic restart as Mayer cut a path up the middle to take the lead while Larson surged forward, quickly joining the battle for the top spot. Moments later, a crash for Sammy Smith pushed the race into overtime with Larson moving up from eighth to third already. He climbed up to second on the next restart just before Jeremy Clements wrecking, triggering double overtime.

It was now Mayer versus Larson on the front row, but there was little the Haas Factory driver and defending Texas winner could do against the 2021 Cup Series champion. Larson drove off as Nick Sanchez slammed the wall, spoiling a top five run for himself. Gray made it up to the runner-up spot after Mayer slid wide as well, but unlike Sanchez, he avoided clobbering the wall.