NASCAR News: Almirola Wins Bristol Xfinity Playoff Opener

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 Playoff opener at Bristol (Tenn.) 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.

He then had to out-run, out-maneuvered and outlast 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 fulltime NASCAR 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 0.381-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 pole sitter 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 55 laps into the race with an engine issue. He’s now ranked 12th – last among the Playoff contenders; 24 points below the cutoff line with two races remaining in this opening round.

“An 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.”

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 cutoff line – 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 opening round Playoff races on Sept. 27 at Kansas Speedway (4 p.m. ET on USA Network, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).  Almirola is the defending race winner. NASCAR Wire Service

NASCAR Xfinity Series Race – Food City 300

1. (3)  Aric Almirola (P), Toyota, 300.

2. (10)  Sheldon Creed (P), Ford, 300.

3. (2)  Sam Mayer (P), Ford, 300.

4. (11)  Carson Kvapil # (P), Chevrolet, 300.

5. (4)  Connor Zilisch # (P), Chevrolet, 300.

6. (1)  Justin Allgaier (P), Chevrolet, 300.

7. (7)  Harrison Burton (P), Ford, 300.

8. (12)  Christian Eckes #, Chevrolet, 300.

9. (26)  Jeremy Clements, Chevrolet, 300.

10. (18)  Brennan Poole, Chevrolet, 300.

11. (22)  Brandon Jones (P), Toyota, 300.

12. (16)  Dean Thompson #, Toyota, 300.

13. (20)  Nick Sanchez # (P), Chevrolet, 300.

14. (5)  Taylor Gray # (P), Toyota, 300.

15. (6)  William Sawalich #, Toyota, 300.

16. (15)  Parker Retzlaff, Chevrolet, 300.

17. (17)  Corey Day, Chevrolet, 300.

18. (19)  Jeb Burton, Chevrolet, 300.

19. (21)  Austin Hill (P), Chevrolet, 300.

20. (28)  Brenden Queen(i), Chevrolet, 300.

21. (30)  Kyle Sieg, Ford, 300.

22. (27)  Anthony Alfredo, Chevrolet, 300.

23. (8)  Ryan Sieg, Ford, 299.

24. (25)  Matt DiBenedetto, Chevrolet, 299.

25. (9)  Jesse Love (P), Chevrolet, 299.

26. (31)  Daniel Dye #, Chevrolet, 299.

27. (24)  Jeffrey Earnhardt, Toyota, 299.

28. (33)  Josh Williams, Chevrolet, 298.

29. (32)  Josh Bilicki, Chevrolet, 296.

30. (34)  Logan Bearden, Chevrolet, 296.

31. (37)  Austin Green, Chevrolet, 295.

32. (23)  Leland Honeyman, Chevrolet, 294.

33. (35)  Carson Ware, Chevrolet, 288.

34. (38)  Blaine Perkins, Chevrolet, 287.

35. (36)  Joey Gase, Chevrolet, Axle, 268.

36. (13)  Stefan Parsons(i), Chevrolet, Accident, 81.

37. (14)  Sammy Smith (P), Chevrolet, Engine, 56.

38. (29)  Ryan Ellis, Chevrolet, Oil Cooler, 55.

Average Speed of Race Winner:  79.861 mph.

Time of Race:  2 Hrs, 0 Mins, 8 Secs. Margin of Victory:  0.381 Seconds.

Caution Flags:  7 for 60 laps.

Lead Changes:  7 among 6 drivers.

Lap Leaders:   J. Allgaier (P) 1-78;C. Zilisch # (P) 79;H. Burton (P) 80-83;J. Love (P) 84;J. Allgaier (P) 85-101;S. Mayer (P) 102-169;C. Zilisch # (P) 170-266;A. Almirola (P) 267-300.

Leaders Summary (Driver, Times Lead, Laps Led):  Connor Zilisch # (P) 2 times for 98 laps; Justin Allgaier (P) 2 times for 95 laps; Sam Mayer (P) 1 time for 68 laps; Aric Almirola (P) 1 time for 34 laps; Harrison Burton (P) 1 time for 4 laps; Jesse Love (P) 1 time for 1 lap.

Stage #1 Top Ten: 7,88,25,41,2,19,39,1,54,18

Stage #2 Top Ten: 88,41,7,19,1,26,54,18,44,48