Pit Stops : Kansas Speedway

• Wednesday, September 25th, 2024
• NASCAR Wire Service - Reid Spencer

NASCAR Xfinity Series Playoffs get under way on Saturday

In last Friday’s Food City 300 at Bristol Motor Speedway, the NASCAR Xfinity Series’ final regular-season race, there weren’t any surprise as to which drivers qualified for the Playoffs.

The real shocker came when Justin Allgaier’s ill fortune erased a 43-point lead and handed the regular-season title to reigning series champion Cole Custer.

But with the points reset, Allgaier is the top seed with a 27-point edge over ninth-place Sheldon Creed as the series begins its Playoff Round of 12 in Saturday’s Kansas Lottery 300 at Kansas Speedway (4 p.m. ET on CW, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

Along with Allgaier and Custer, eight other drivers had secured Playoff spots before the Bristol race: Austin Hill, Chandler Smith, Shane van Gisbergen, Jesse Love, Sam Mayer, Riley Herbst, Sheldon Creed and AJ Allmendinger.

Sammy Smith and Parker Kligerman completed the Playoff field on points in Friday’s race.

Creed has never won an Xfinity Series race, but the driver of the No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota has finished second 13 times, including the final two regular-season races this year. He enters the Playoffs with six top fives in his last eight races.

“Kansas is one of my favorite race tracks,” said Creed, who finished third last season in his second Xfinity start at the 1.5-mile track. “It’s probably my second favorite right behind Darlington, so I have high hopes going into this weekend. From here on out, every qualifying session, stage point, and race mean more than ever, so the pressure is on to execute.

“Ideally, I’d like to leave Kansas with good stage points, a strong finish, and hopefully even a win. There’s a lot of talented guys in this field, so I know we need to rise to the occasion if we’re going to have a shot at this championship.

“It all starts in Kansas and we’re going to do everything we can to put ourselves in a good position heading into Talladega (the second Playoff race on Oct. 5).”

• Kansas Lottery 300
• Pole Winner: Brandon Jones
• Age: 27
• Team : No 9 - Menards/Schultz Chevrolet
• Owner: Rick Hendrick
• Crew Chief: Adam Wall
• Brandon Jones won the Pole Award for the Kansas Lottery 300 with a lap of 3076 seconds, 175553 mph
• This is his 11th pole in 296 NASCAR Xfinity Series races
• This is his third pole and 10th top-10 start in 2024
• This is his second pole in ten races at Kansas Speedway
• Chandler Smith (second) posted his 21st top-10 start of 2024 and his first in two races at Kansas Speedway
• Cole Custer (third) posted his fifth top-10 start at Kansas Speedway It is his 20th in 27 races this season
• Jesse Love (seventh) was the fastest qualifying rookie

• Saturday, September 28th, 2024
• NASCAR Wire Service - Reid Spencer

Aric Almirola beats Playoff drivers in NASCAR Xfinity postseason opener at Kansas

Part-time NASCAR Xfinity Series driver Aric Almirola ran down Playoff leader Cole Custer in the closing laps of Saturday’s Kansas Lottery 300 at Kansas Speedway and pulled away for his second victory of the season in the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota.

In a Round of 12 Playoff opener that ended with several unhappy drivers and a handful of post-race conversations between Playoff contenders, Almirola picked up his first win at the 1.5-mile track and the sixth of his career.

Almirola beat Custer to the finish line by 0.660 seconds, with Chandler Smith trailing in third after raising Custer’s ire by squeezing the No. 00 Ford into the outside wall as Custer chased Smith for the lead—before Almirola made his late-race run.

To seal the win, Almirola had to overcome a brush with the outside wall on Lap 124 and a resulting cut tire that forced him to the pits. An opportune caution that interrupted a cycle of green flag stops on Lap 145 was all Almirola needed to get back on equal footing with the other contenders.

Almirola is the fourth driver to win two races this season in the No. 20 JGR Toyota, joining Christopher Bell, John Hunter Nemechek and Ryan Truex.

“I’m wore out,” said Almirola, who passed Custer for the lead on Lap 197 of 200. “That was a hard day at the office for a guy that’s been sitting on the couch. I just pushed too hard there when we had the issue on pit road (a slow stop), and I got in the fence and cut the right-rear tire down.

“I knew I had to put my head down and go to work after that. We got lucky to get the caution when we did, and we were out of tires, so the fact that it went green there to the end (for the final 49 laps)… that’s where we were strong. We were really strong on the long runs.”

After the race, Custer had a brief conversation with Smith and vowed revenge.

“Everybody wants to try and talk afterwards,” Custer said. “At the end of the day, he put me in the fence, and he’s going to pay for it.”

Smith countered that he didn’t believe Custer ever had position to his outside.

“We’re racing for the win and five extra Playoff points,” said Smith, who led 114 laps. “You’ve got a very, very valid statement, I understand, but I also wouldn’t change what I did, because I was giving myself the best shot to win.”

Non-Playoff driver Connor Zilisch finished fourth, followed by Sheldon Creed, who improved his position in the Playoff standings by four spots with his seventh top five in the last nine races.

Pole winner Brandon Jones, who didn’t make the postseason, was fifth, followed by Playoff drivers Austin Hill, Shane van Gisbergen, Jesse Love and Riley Herbst.

In another post-race conversation, Hill apologized to Herbst for Lap 90 contact that sent Herbst’s Ford spinning through the infield grass at the end of the second stage. In yet another tete a tete between Playoff drivers, Sammy Smith took AJ Allmendinger to task for early contact that damaged Smith’s Chevrolet.

Smith finished 22nd and heads to next Saturday’s Playoff race at Talladega 12th in the standings, 23 points below the cut line for the Round of 8.

Allmendinger (17th Saturday) and Parker Kligerman (12th) are 10th and 11th in the Playoff standings, 13 and 15 points below the cutoff, respectively.

The shockingly bad luck haunting top-seeded Justin Allgaier continued in force on Saturday. Racing in close quarters with Creed after a restart on Lap 70, Allgaier’s No. 7 Chevrolet broke loose, slid across traffic and nosed into the inside wall on the backstretch.

After frantic repairs, Allgaier attempted to return to the race, but a cut left-front tire sent him into the outside wall and out of action in 36th place.

Allgaier’s exit came eight days after a series of accidents knocked him out of the Food City 300 at Bristol Motor Speedway and cost him the regular-season championship.

“I don’t know if I’ve had a stretch of races that have been like these last three or four weeks,” said Allgaier. “We’re not out of it by any stretch. Obviously, that’s why you do all the work to get all the bonus points you can.

“We’ve got a long road the next two weeks. I’ve got the team that can do it. We’ve just got to go have some luck on our side.”

Allgaier fell from first to ninth in the standings and trails Herbst by one point in the battle for the final berth in the Round of 8.

Custer now leads the series by five points over Chandler Smith, with Hill 15 points back. Fourth-place Sam Mayer, who ran 13th at Kansas, is 28 points behind Custer and three points ahead of Creed in fifth.

Van Gisbergen and Love are sixth and seventh in the Playoff standings, respectively eight and three points above cut line for the next round.

• Drivers Entered: 39 (1 drivers will not make the race)
• Laps Scheduled: 110
• Laps Actual: 200 - NASCAR OVERTIME!
• Margin of Victory: 0.660 Seconds
• Time of Race: 2 Hours 28 Minutes 43 Seconds
• Average Speed: 121.036
• Cautions: 6 for 33 laps
• Lead Changes: 14
• Green Flag Passes: 1,692 (10.1 passes per green flag lap)

• Kansas Lottery 300
• Race Winner: Aric Almirola
• Age: 40
• Team : No 20 - He Gets Us Toyota
• Owner: Joe Gibbs
• Crew Chief: Seth Chavka
• Aric Almirola won the Kansas Lottery 300, his sixth victory in 112 Xfinity Series races
• This is his second victory and fifth top-10 finish in 2024
• This is his first victory and first top-10 finish in four races at Kansas Speedway
• Cole Custer (second) posted his first top-10 finish in six races at Kansas Speedway It is his 19th top-10 finish in 2024
• Chandler Smith (third) posted his first top-10 finish in two races at Kansas Speedway
• Shane Van Gisbergen (eighth) was the highest finishing rookie
• Cole Custer leads the point standings by 5 points over Chandler Smith