The NASCAR Xfinity Series rolled into Charlotte Motor Speedway on Saturday for the running of the Alsco 300. The race marked the 13th race of the year, and the first of two trips that the Xfinity Series will make to Charlotte, with the next visit being a playoff affair.
Coming into the contest, Kaulig racing’s AJ Allmendinger carried a fairly sizeable lead in the points over Noah Gragson & Ty Gibbs – although by virtue of his three wins, Gibbs currently sits atop the Playoff leaderboard, followed by Gragson with two. The action around the playoff cut line wasn’t too horribly exciting either, with Ryan Sieg holding onto the 12th spot by a healthy margin over the likes of Anthony Alfredo, Jeb Burton, and Sheldon Creed.
Throughout the race, JR Motorsports put on a clinic, with the pair of Josh Berry and Justin Allgaier effectively dominating from start to finish. It was shaping up to be a great battle to the finish between the two before Justin Allgaier got into the outside wall while battling for the lead, prompting an unscheduled pit stop – the driver of the JRM #7 would still manage to rally for a solid seventh place run.
Outside of Berry and Allgaier, the rest of the JRM stable had great runs as well – with Sam Mayer bringing it home third, and Noah Gragson in fourth – who did so despite running much of the races final stage down a cylinder. Gragson also found himself in a bit of controversy after the race with former JR Motorsports Jeb Burton, who took exception to a couple of slide jobs Gragson threw on him. “If I wanted to wreck you, you wouldn’t be walking right now” Burton could be heard saying after the race while the two walked into the infield. Burton went on to express his anger towards Gragson in a series of tweets Saturday into Sunday.
“It’s dropped – I jut like race fans enjoying something to talk about” Burton would later say on Twitter.
Ty Gibbs would bring home a runner-up finish after starting the race in the rear, marking his fifth top-3 finish, while Ryan Preece would also come home with a top-5 in his second Xfinity Series race of the season – a much needed result for a part time driver aiming to impress in his limited opportunities, particularly following Friday’s truck race incident with Carson Hocevar.
Outside of the top dogs, a fair amount of attrition allowed some underdogs to put on good showings. The aforementioned Jeb Burton – who despite not collecting any top-10’s this year, has only finished outside of the top 20 twice – came home 12th. Ryan Ellis, who is driving part time for Alpha Prime Motorsports, had a great day for the team, bringing the #44 car home in p13, tying the team’s best ever finish – which Ellis was also responsible for at Las Vegas. Bayley Currey collected a respectable p15, and Matt Mills collected his second top-20 of the year in 20th.
A few notable drivers also had poor showings. The Kaulig Racing drivers of AJ Allmendinger and Landon Cassill came home p19 and p29 respectively. Allmendinger had been running in the top-5 when he cut a tire down late, while Cassill suffered an early race mechanical issue, and finished 69 laps down. Austin Dillon, in a one-off for Big Machine Racing, got caught up in a mid-race wreck that also included current playoff cut-line driver Ryan Sieg.
Next week, the series heads to Portland International Raceway for the first time in series history for some road racing action in a contest that is sure to be exciting.
Final Results:
- Josh Berry
- Ty Gibbs
- Sam Mayer
- Noah Gragson
- Ryan Preece
- Daniel Hemric
- Justin Allgaier
- Sheldon Creed
- Trevor Bayne
- Myatt Snider
- Brett Moffitt
- Jeb Burton
- Ryan Ellis
- Austin Hill
- Bayley Currey
- Brandon Jones
- Brandon Brown
- J.J. Yeley
- A.J. Almendinger
- Matt Mills
- Garrett Smithley
- Jeremy Clements
- CJ McLaughlin
- Shane Lee
- Riley Herbst
- Ryan Vargas
- Josh Williams
- Nick Sanchez
- Landon Cassill
- Stefan Parsons
- Austin Dillon
- Ryan Sieg
- Anthony Alfredo
- Joe Graf Jr.
- Brennan Poole
- Kyle Weatherman
- Jeffrey Earnhardt
- Timmy Hill
Photo Credit:
pitboxpress.com 