The NASCAR Xfinity Series Boyd Gaming 300 race has been postponed due to persistent rain Saturday. It will resume Sunday evening about one hour after the completion of the Cup Series Pennzoil 400 at approximately 7:30 p.m. on FS2.
The race
was red-flagged Saturday after Lap 50 of the scheduled 200 laps shortly after
Chase Briscoe won Stage 1.
Joe Graf
Jr., in the Bobby Dotter No. 8 Chevy, did not pit and was scored as the race
leader at the time of the red flag. Stewart-Haas Racing’s Chase Briscoe, after
leading 27 laps, is currently in second place.
Qualifying
was rained out and the beginning of the race was delayed about 90 minutes due
to rain. The lineup was set by owner points with Richard Childress Racing’s Myatt
Snider on the pole. But after a crash during practice Friday the team made the
decision to go to a backup car which sent Snider to the back of the field for
the race start.
Daniel
Hemric was running in fourth place but on Lap 19 brought out the first caution
when his car got loose and he made contact with the wall on the frontstretch.
He was only able to complete 34 laps and is out of the race.
LAS VEGAS – Kyle Busch recovers from an early race issue to win the Boyd Gaming 300 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in the NASCAR Xfinity Series.
Since winning Friday night’s NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series Strat 200, Busch will now go for the triple sweep at Vegas in Sunday’s Pennzoil 400 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race (3:30 p.m. ET on FOX, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
“It was really tough to come back from one of those setbacks,” Busch said after an eventful day in his No. 18 Extreme Concepts / iK9 Toyota. “I wasn’t sure how we were going to be able to do it down a set of tires. We got a lucky break with a caution during the second stage. That kind of got us back on cycle, and we were able to put the first set (of tires) back on with fresh wheels so we didn’t have any more issues there.”
John Hunter Nemechek tried everything he could with the late race position he had, but came up just 0.192 seconds short of victory.
“We gave him a run for his money,” Nemechek said. “I’ve been beaten by Kyle (Busch) too many times, in late model races and now in the Xfinity Series. Hopefully, we can come out on top and build momentum off of this.”
Noah Gragson was the highest finishing rookie in his No. 9 Switch Chevrolet after an aggressive three-wide pass on the final lap to finish in third. Austin Dillon helped Kaulig Racing earn their best career finish of fourth in the No. 10 Stitched Chevrolet. Daytona 500 champion Michael Annett rounded out the top five.
Ryan Sieg, Ross Chastain, Chase Briscoe, Cole Custer and Justin Haley (one lap down) completed the top 10.
Custer Sets the Pace in Stage One
Qualifying was rained out, so the field was set by the order of owners’ points. Stephen Leicht and Christopher Bell started at the rear of the field for unapproved adjustments to their cars prior to the start of the race. Cole Custer started on the front row and led the opening eight laps. Austin Cindric, for a brief moment was out front on Lap 9, but Custer reclaimed the top spot for the rest of the first stage.
On Lap 3, Donald Theetge spun through Turn 3 and slowly drifted up the track, collecting Joey Gase. A few drivers did elect to come down pit road, but all the leaders stayed out.
Tyler Reddick leads Brandon Jones and John Hunter Nemechek on the front stretch at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Photo by Rachel Schuoler for Speedway Media.
After 15 laps into the race, Kyle Busch, who was working on his triple sweep at Vegas, came down pit road after feeling a vibration. He went a lap down early, and faced an uphill battle early in the race as a few others were already a lap down. This also put him at a disadvantage as he was down a fresh set of tires. Tyler Reddick radioed in saying that something might be breaking, and had trouble getting onto pit road as he was stuck in the outside lane. However, he stayed out on track to keep the lead lap position.
The rest of the stage finished under green with Custer collecting the stage points. At this point, four cars retired from the race and one had not yet joined the race. During pit stops, Custer lost three spots while Tyler Reddick gained the lead leaving pit road. Three penalties were handed out during this pit cycle. Jeff Green’s crew members were over the wall too soon, and both Timmy Hill and Josh Williams had uncontrolled tire issues.
Stage Two Dominated by Dirt Racers
As the field restarted the race, Tyler Reddick wasted no time and pulled away from the field to lead all the laps in the second stage. Christopher Bell had also worked his way up toward the front after starting at the rear of the field to finish in second at stage end, as the two dirt racers put on a great show racing together.
The one notable event that was a major turning point was on Lap 60 when the yellow was displayed after Austin Cindric and Zane Smith collided on the exit of Turn 2. Cindric went for a long slide, and barely made contact with the outside wall, if any. Both were able to continue the race, but this allowed Kyle Busch to put on the scuff set of tires from the first stage, putting him on the same tire strategy as the rest of the field. He was still a lap down, but it put him in much better position for either a lucky dog or a wave around.
Two drivers received penalties during pit stops. Ryan Sieg was caught speeding on pit road, and Vinnie Miller had a crew member over the wall too soon.
Kyle Busch Surges Back to the Front in the Final Stage
Most of the third stage was uneventful, aside from Busch charging through the field toward the front. He first claimed the lead from Tyler Reddick on Lap 112, and kept the top spot until 20 laps remaining.
Bell and Reddick worked together to reel in Busch, and Bell eventually was able to get by Busch. He led for a lap, but brushed the wall in Turns 3 and 4, giving the lead back to Busch. Bell and Reddick also collided a few times, allowing Busch to pull a gap. On Lap 190, Ja Junior Avila spun off Turn 4 into the infield grass to bring out the caution flag. All drivers had one set of fresh tires, and elected to come to pit road with only six drivers on the lead lap. Before the yellow flag, Busch, Jones and Reddick had over a 20 second lead on the fourth place driver. The top three positions stayed the same after pit stops, but Brandon Jones gained two spots to start in the fourth position.
On the restart, Bell and Reddick attempted to work together to get by Busch who didn’t have quite the perfectly handling car at this point in the race. Bell had briefly stepped out in front before, and Reddick was attempting to do the same.
Before the leaders could take the white flag, Cole Custer had a run on Brandon Jones out of Turn 2. Jones attempted to block, and the two made contact on the back stretch. Jones over-corrected and turned hard into the outside wall. His window net went down and he was able to walk away uninjured, and was evaluated and released from the infield care center shortly after.
Most of the leaders crashed during the first overtime attempt on the exit of Turn 4. Photo by Rachel Schuoler for Speedway Media.
The first overtime attempt had many unknowns, including who would push who and if there would be a four-wide pass going into the first turn. Many of the other drivers had better handling cars, as more started to charge for the win. Going into Turn 3, Reddick lost control of his car as he was to the inside of Busch. As he slid up the track, he collided into Bell and the two went spinning on the exit of Turn 4. Both Austin Cindric and Zane Smith crashed into the sides of both cars heavily, ending the day for all four drivers. The yellow flag was displayed before Busch could take the white flag.
Kyle Busch chose the outside lane on all the final restarts, including the one for the last overtime attempt. John Hunter Nemechek stayed to Busch’s inside until Turn 4 when Busch could clear his car. Noah Gragson made a 3-wide pass in Turns 1 and 2 to recover from an early ill-handling race car, but Busch had too much of a lead for anyone to get a run on him. This was Busch’s second career NASCAR Xfinity win at Vegas, and made him one win away from completing the triple sweep.
The NASCAR Xfinity Series competes next at ISM Raceway in Phoenix, Arizona on March 9.
Race Results for the 23rd Annual Boyd Gaming 300 – Saturday, March 2, 2019, at Las Vegas Motor Speedway
Kyle Larson paced the field for 142 laps to earn his first career NASCAR Xfinity Series win at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in the Boyd Gaming 300.
The final restart resembled closely that of the first start, as Larson pulled away from pole-sitter Christopher Bell after a late race caution for the final seven laps with a margin of victory of 0.881 seconds. The victory was Larson’s first of the season, ninth of his career and first at the speedway.
“It was an awesome day,” Larson mentioned during his Victory Lane interview. “This car was so fast. It was really fast last year, but you really never know, and this was my first time racing with this new (composite) body, and it performed well.”
The driver of the No. 42 Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet overcame a pit road issue that dropped him to eighth for a restart on Lap 139, but it didn’t take long to find his way to the front, pushing the issue three-wide to fight his way through the field quickly.
“Normally my guys are some of the best on pit road,” Larson said. “They said the left-rear (tire) just wouldn’t come out (of the wheel well). I had been fighting a tight issue all day and then finally we got our car to turn better.
“It allowed me to get to the lead fairly easily, and then I was saving fuel in case the race stayed green.”
Larson and Bell have found themselves in this position before. They frequently battle each other on dirt tracks. During the off-season, Bell was the driver in Victory Lane in last November’s Turkey Night Classic and January’s Chili Bowl, one of the biggest midget races of the season. Bell was excited to see the friendly face extend their close competition into the stock car series.
“That was really cool, and there will be a lot more of that,” Bell hinted, who beat Larson earlier in the event at the end of Stage 1. “We were close, running second to Kyle – if I’m going to run second to anyone, I guess I would rather it be him.
“Special day, we were able to win a stage and get a Playoff point. We need to keep racking those up and get some race wins here.”
As Bell mentioned, he did win a playoff point and becomes only the second Xfinity driver to earn any playoff points. As for Larson, his feelings about the competition with Bell were mutual.
“It’s always fun to get to race Bell,” Larson said. “He seems to beat me all the time in the dirt stuff, and he edged me out there in qualifying. That first stage kind of felt like we were dirt-track racing there, swapping lanes and stuff. I was trying to take the air off him, and he got by, and yeah, it was fun.”
As for the rest of the field, JR Motorsports had a strong showing with three of their four drivers finishing in the top eight with Justin Allgaier (third), Elliott Sadler (fifth) and Daytona 500 winner, Tyler Reddick (eighth). Kyle Busch, yesterday’s Camping World Truck Series winner, struggled all day with an ill-handling race car and faced a pit road penalty on his final stop when his gasman grabbed a tire. This year, the new rule states that they are only allowed to ‘kick’ a tire and fuel the car, and no other service is allowed to be done on the car or in the pit box. His No. 18 Interstate Batteries Toyota finished in a disappointing 14th position.
Ryan Blaney, who will start on the pole for tomorrow’s Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race, led 33 laps and finished in fourth. Cole Custer, who makes his Monster Energy Cup series debut tomorrow, finished in the ninth position. Daniel Hemric, Brandon Jones, and Spencer Gallagher also finished the weekend with top-10 results.
Tyler Reddick and Elliott Sadler are tied at the top of the Xfinity Series points after three races. The Xfinity series will continue their west coast swing at ISM Raceway in Phoenix, Arizona next weekend on March 10. Tickets are still available for purchase on the track’s website at http://www.ismraceway.com/Buy-Tickets/NASCAR-Ticket-Prices.aspx.
Christopher Bell runs a speed of 183.686 mph at Las Vegas Motor Speedway to claim his second consecutive NASCAR Xfinity Series pole, the third of his career.
The front row for the Boyd Gaming 300 will feature a veteran and a rookie. Bell edged Kyle Larson, Daniel Hemrick, Cole Custer and Kyle Busch, who rounded out the top 5 starting positions.
“Jason (Ratcliff, crew chief) is the best in the business, and I’m lucky to drive for him and the whole organization at Joe Gibbs Racing,” Bell shared after his qualifying round. “That was a lot of fun. The Rheem Camry got better and better with each run, and I got my confidence up.”
While the No. 20 Toyota won the pole position, Chevrolet dominated the final round with eight cars in the top-12. Elliott Sadler and Tyler Reddick, JR Motorsports teammates, will start sixth and seventh, respectively. The last four positions of the top 12 were swept by Chevrolet teams with Matt Tifft, Austin Dillon, Spencer Gallagher and Justin Allgaier. Yesterday’s Camping World Truck Series winner, Kyle Busch, will roll off the grid from the fifth position. Ryan Blaney, who won the pole for Sunday’s Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race, starts eighth.
Some notables who missed the final round of qualifying include Austin Cindric, Ryan Truex and Brandon Jones, who will start 13th, 16th and 18th, respectively.
Earlier, Bell was in the media center discussing the popular racing simulator, iRacing.
“I’m a big believer in iRacing,” Bell said during the interview. “It doesn’t give you any feel obviously because it’s all visual. But whenever you go to places you haven’t been to in a while like Las Vegas – last time we were here was last year – you have the visuals of what Turn 1 looks like, what Turn 3 looks like, and you’re still getting put in race situations.”
Fox Sports 1 will air the 200 lap Xfinity Series race at the 1.5-mile speedway beginning at 4:00 p.m. ET. Stages 1 and 2 will last 45 laps each, and the final stage will run for 110 laps. The green flag is set to drop at 4:16 pm ET.
Kyle Busch led all but one lap as he cleaned out the casino in the XFINITY Series at Las Vegas.
The driver of the No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota led 199 of the 200 laps to score the victory in the Boyd Gaming 300 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. It’s his 78th career victory in the XFINITY Series and first at the track for the Las Vegas native.
“It feels really good for as good as this car was,” he said. “It was really, really fast. This is 2-for-2 and that’s pretty cool, and to check this one off the box is awesome, too.”
Busch also commented about winning on his home track and holding off Suárez for the win.
“We were worried about fuel, but more so we more so worried about (Daniel) Suarez. He was on me there at the end, he was really, really fast. I can’t say enough about all these guys, everyone at Joe Gibbs Racing prepares some really fast Camrys and this NOS Energy Drink Camry was the best. It felt really, really good. I wish for as good as we were at the beginning of the race in the beginning of the run and end of the run, I was hoping we’d have some long run speed there at the end. Just wasn’t showing. Suarez was definitely faster than us when he got clean track. If roles were reversed, he would have been pulling away from me and I wasn’t going to be able to catch him. All in all just a great day for us in one-two-three and for me to get a victory here in my home town, check one off the list – that’s pretty awesome.”
Daniel Suárez tried to make a charge towards the end on his teammate, but he couldn’t close the gap and took his No. 19 JGR Toyota to a runner-up finish.
“Right there at the end, maybe, it took me a while to figure out how to be fast through traffic with a loose race car. But, honestly, in the last 10-15 laps we were the fastest race car there, so proud of my guys and looking forward for next weekend,” Suárez said.
He leaves sin city with the points lead.
Rookie Erik Jones came back from a two-lap deficit to finish third in his No. 20 JGR Toyota.
“Just wish we could have been in contention all day,” Jones said. He felt that he had “a car that could run with Kyle at times.”
Chase Elliott finished fourth in his No. 88 JR Motorsports Chevrolet while Austin Dillon rounded out the top-five in his No. 2 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet.
Brandon Jones finished sixth in his No. 33 RCR Chevrolet followed by Ty Dillon in seventh place in his No. 3 RCR Chevrolet. Elliott Sadler finished eighth in his No. 1 JRM Chevrolet, Justin Allgaier finished ninth in his No. 7 JRM Chevrolet and Brendan Gaughan rounded out the top-10 in his No. 62 RCR Chevrolet.
There was one red flag for 19 minutes for a three-car wreck in turn 2 with 63 laps remaining. The No. 25 Rick Ware Racing Chevrolet of Cody Ware broke loose, turned and slammed the wall driver-side. His disabled car rolled down into the middle of the track, but the caution had yet to be thrown. Slowing down to avoid him, Darrell Wallace Jr. t-boned the front of Ware’s car with the left front of his car and went spinning. Justin Marks went to the high side of the track and tagged the wall in his No. 42 Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet. He came back down the track and rammed into the rear of the No. 6 Roush Fenway Racing Ford.
“That second impact was pretty good too,” Wallace said. “I am here and talking to you. All good. I hate it for my guys. I was having so much fun here. Ten laps ago I was thinking how good this place was to me. Guess I spoke too soon.”
Wallace said while his spotter didn’t have enough time to warn him of the disabled Ware car, he said that “(He) did a hell of a job as he always does” and that there was “no blame on anybody. By the time he caught it I was already in pitch and by the time I slowed down it just jumped out from under me. It is unfortunate circumstances, that is all.”
Eleven cars finished the race on the lead lap. The race lasted two hours, three minutes and 47 seconds at an average speed of 145.415 mph. The race had two lead changes among two different drivers and three cautions for 15 laps.
Brad Keselowski passed Dale Earnhardt Jr. on the final lap of Sunday’s Kobalt Tools 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway to score the victory. Keselowski notched his 11th career NASCAR Sprint Cup Series victory after leading a dominating 52 laps of the 267 laps ran in ‘Sin City’.
“Heck of a call throughout the race to get us out front,” Keselowski said in victory lane. “At the end, this car was just really fast. I’m really proud of the car and proud of the team.”
“Carl Edwards helped me out there,” Keselowksi explained. “He gave me a little break and let me go after Dale.”
Keselowski, who won yesterday’s Boyd Gaming 300 in the NASCAR Nationwide Series at LVMS, inherited the race lead after Earnhardt’s fuel tank went empty down the backstretch on the white flag lap. Earnhardt was able to continue and finished an acceptable second place, which becomes his second straight runner-up finish.
“It sucks to lose like that, but we can’t let that be a negative.” Earnhardt explained after climbing from his No. 88 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet. “Running out of gas it tough, but one thing you can’t do it let it get under your skin, get under your team’s skin. Probably would have had a better record with about a Mountain Dew can full of fuel.”
The pivotal moment of the event occurred with 48 laps remaining when the fourth caution of the race flew for debris on the front stretch. Keselowski, Kyle Busch, Jimmie Johnson and Paul Menard were among the front runners to hit pit lane in hopes that’d be their final stop of the race. However, considering we were in the famous gambling city of Las Vegas, Nevada, it was only appropriate for somebody to stay out and try to make it to the end on fuel.
Carl Edwards and Earnhardt were the only competitors to gamble and stay on the racetrack. Luckily, they both were able to have enough fuel in the tank to reach the checkered flag. Edwards finished fifth, which marks his first top five of the season and Earnhardt (like stated above) finish second.
Paul Menard, on the day his wife was scheduled to have her baby, finished third after sitting inside the top five all race long. Menard finished highest among the Richard Childress Racing stable and posted his first career top five at Vegas.
“It’s something we can definitely build on for more mile and a halfs,” said Menard, who was going back home to North Carolina, where his wife is due to deliver their first child.
Joey Logano, who started the race on the pole and led 44 laps, finished fourth after dying off during the middle part of the event. Jimmie Johnson, who led 34 laps today, finished sixth after being shuffled outside the top five late in the going.
The NASCAR Sprint Cup Series returns to the track next Sunday at Bristol Motor Speedway in Bristol, Tennessee in what’s going to only instigate existing feuds and create new ones while it’s at it.
