In one of the best NASCAR Xfinity Series events in quite some time, the battle between Aric Almirola, Connor Zilisch, and Jesse Love for the victory in Saturday’s Focused Health 302 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway fed families all night long and resulted in an epic battle for the win between Almirola and Zilisch.
Almirola, the semi-retired veteran of the NASCAR Cup Series, ultimately came out on top after a hard-fought battle with the 19-year-old phenom out of the JR Motorsports stable, winning his 10th NASCAR Xfinity Series event, and his first at the 1.5-mile racetrack located in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The Tampa, Florida-native led a race-high 107 laps on the evening in the No. 19 YoungLife Toyota GR Supra for Joe Gibbs Racing, and went to Victory Lane by 0.696 seconds over Zilisch, who extends his record-setting streak of top-five finishes to now include the last 18 NASCAR Xfinity Series events.
Justin Allgaier came home third place in the No. 7 BRANDT Chevrolet, giving himself a substantial points buffer heading into the superspeedway of Talladega for the series’ next event, and the middle event in the semi-final round of the post-season.
Corey Day, driving the No. 17 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports, earned a career-best fourth after steadily improving throughout the entire event. Nick Sanchez, who made a late run at Almirola and Zilisch on the final restart of the race, rounded out the top-five.
Jesse Love, who had his No. 2 Whelen Chevrolet in the fight all evening long at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, ended up fading to sixth on a late-race restart, an effort that doesn’t match the performance out of the Richard Childress Racing driver and team on Saturday evening.
Ryan Sieg brought his No. 39 RSS Racing Ford Mustang home in seventh after an unscheduled pit stop to begin the final stage, while Taylor Gray, Sam Mayer, and Austin Hill completed the top-10. Four of the eight remaining post-season drivers finished outside the top-10 on Saturday, those being Sheldon Creed (P11), Brandon Jones (P13), Carson Kvapil (P15), and Sammy Smith (P20).
Now, the NASCAR Xfinity Series will head to the high banks of Talladega Superspeedway next weekend, where they’ll join both the NASCAR Cup Series and NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series for a tripleheader weekend of chaos and unpredictability. Coverage of the event will take place Saturday, October 18 at 4:00 PM ET on The CW.
Pos
Car
Driver
Laps
Diff
1
19
Aric Almirola
201
—
2
88
Connor Zilisch (P)
201
0.696
3
7
Justin Allgaier (P)
201
1.484
4
17
Corey Day
201
3.551
5
48
Nick Sanchez
201
4.053
6
2
Jesse Love (P)
201
5.047
7
39
Ryan Sieg
201
5.868
8
54
Taylor Gray
201
6.577
9
41
Sam Mayer (P)
201
7.014
10
21
Austin Hill
201
7.199
11
00
Sheldon Creed (P)
201
7.804
12
18
William Sawalich
201
9.431
13
20
Brandon Jones (P)
201
10.077
14
25
Harrison Burton
201
10.350
15
1
Carson Kvapil (P)
201
10.481
16
11
Daniel Hemric
201
11.325
17
10
Daniel Dye
201
11.408
18
16
Christian Eckes
201
11.798
19
99
Matt DiBenedetto
201
12.437
20
8
Sammy Smith (P)
201
13.674
21
28
Kyle Sieg
201
19.051
22
24
Trevor Bayne
201
19.890
23
91
Josh Williams
201
25.649
24
42
Anthony Alfredo
201
29.046
25
44
Brennan Poole
201
30.860
26
27
Jeb Burton
201
31.681
27
31
Blaine Perkins
201
31.682
28
26
Dean Thompson
200
1 lap
29
71
Ryan Ellis
200
1 lap
30
4
Parker Retzlaff
200
1 lap
31
32
Austin Green
199
2 laps
32
14
Garrett Smithley
199
2 laps
33
35
Mason Maggio
198
3 laps
34
07
Nick Leitz
198
3 laps
35
53
Joey Gase
196
5 laps
36
51
Jeremy Clements
146
55 laps
37
45
Mason Massey
84
117 laps
38
70
Thomas Annunziata
68
133 laps
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