NASCAR XFINITY Series teams are ready for their second playoff race in the Use Your Melon. Drive Sober 200 at Dover International Speedway on Saturday, September 30th at 2:45 pm ET. Coverage begins at 2:30 pm ET on NBC Sports Network with radio coverage on MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
Drivers will race 200 miles over 200 laps with Stage 1 ending on lap 60, Stage 2 on lap 120, and the last Stage ends on the last lap 200.
What to Watch for – Saturday’s race marks the second event of the 2017 XFINITY Series Playoffs.
NASCAR Next alumnus Cole Custer tries to follow-up his fifth-place finish at Kentucky with another strong showing at Dover.
The last two XFINITY Series champions won at Dover on their way to the title – Chris Buescher (2015) and Daniel Suarez (2016).
Chip Ganassi Racing Scores 1-2 Finish in Memorable Race at Kentucky
It was a stellar night for Chip Ganassi Racing as part-time XFINITY Series driver Tyler Reddick won the VisitMyrtleBeach.com 300 at Kentucky Speedway, while 2017 XFINITY Series Playoffs contender Brennan Poole finished second.
Reddick was running in his 15th career XFINITY Series race this season and led 66 laps on his way to his first career XFINITY Series win.
Reddick pointed towards his team’s execution when asked how he won the race;
“It was all about execution and having a smart race. This is the goal we have all been working towards. We had plenty of opportunities to throw this race away, and we had a very sizeable lead. We played it smart and it got us a win.”
Listen to the rest of that post-race audio…
For Poole, his second-place finish was the top-finish out of the 12 drivers in the XFINITY Series Playoffs. He now sits sixth in the XFINITY Series Playoffs standings as the series heads to Dover this week for the Use Your Melon. Drive Sober 200 on Saturday.
Custer Musters Strong Opening Playoffs Performance
2017 Sunoco Rookie of the Year contender and Stewart-Haas Racing driver Cole Custer opened his 2017 XFINITY Series Playoffs campaign with a statement-like start at Kentucky Speedway.
Custer started the race from the third position, ut won Stage 1 and Stage 2 of the VisitMyrtleBeach.com 300 – his first two stages wins of the 2017 season.
He would go on to finish the race in fifth-place but set himself up well for the remaining races in the Round of 12. Custer sits second in the XFINITY Series Playoffs standings heading to Dover International Speedway this weekend. He finished fourth at Dover, after starting the race 14th, in his first career XFINITY Series start there earlier this year.
Custer has run well as of late and is now poised to make a strong run at the 2017 XFINITY Series championship. He’s finished in the top-14 or better in six consecutive races, which includes five top-ten finishes.
Byron Looking for Bounce-Back at Dover
JR Motorsports driver and 2017 Sunoco Rookie of the Year contender William Byron will be looking for a bounce-back performance when the XFINITY Series Playoffs head to Dover this weekend.
Byron – who entered the XFINITY Series Playoffs at Kentucky as the top-seed – made an unscheduled pit stop-early in the last stage of the VisitMyrtleBeach.com 300 to change a loose wheel and fell down a lap.
He rejoined the race in 27th but worked his way back up to a 18th-place finish.
Heading into Dover, Byron now sits fifth in the XFINITY Series Playoffs standings but has some experience on his side at the one-mile track. Byron finished sixth there earlier this season after starting the race eighth.
He is having a terrific Sunoco Rookie of the Year campaign with three wins, eight top-fives, 17 top-tens and 160 laps led in 27 starts this season for JR Motorsports. He leads Cole Custer in the Sunoco Rookie standings by 40 points, 278-238.
As They Stand
Here’s a look at the XFINITY Series Playoffs leaderboard heading into the second race of the postseason at Dover International Speedway:
Bouncing Around the Bubble
After the opening race of the XFINITY Series Playoffs, the drivers who sit in spots 7-12 on the leaderboard have but 16 points separating them.
Matt Tifft (Seventh, ten points ahead of ninth-place) – The Sunoco Rookie of the Year contender has a pair of starts at the Monster Mile, posting top-ten finishes each time. So far this season, Matt Tifft has two top-fives and eight top-tens to his credit, including a ninth-place finish in the opener of the Playoffs last weekend.
Ryan Reed (Eighth, eight points ahead of ninth-place) – Although his average finish in The First State is 15.6, Ryan Reed has tallied top-ten finishes in his last two starts here. Last fall, he crossed the line tenth and then followed that up with a fifth-place finish this spring. In seven starts at Dover, Reed has posted one top-five and two top-ten finishes. Reed opened the season with a win in the first race at Daytona and has since added another top-five and put together six top-tens.
Brendan Gaughan (Ninth, eight points out of eighth place) Earlier this season, Brendan Gaughan drove to a 20th-place finish at the Monster Mile. Overall, Gaughan has just two top-tens and an overall finish of 15.2 in 11 races at Dover – and he’ll have to do better than that to have a shot of moving on to the Round of 8. Thus far in 2017, Gaughan has two top-fives and seven top-tens.
Blake Koch (Tenth, nine points out of eighth place) – Miles the Monster has not been kind to Blake Koch over the years, as his best finish at the track was 12thback in the spring, 2016 race. Overall, Koch has an average finish of 28.5 in 13 starts at Dover – and needs to find a way to tame the beast allowing him to leapfrog into the top-eight of the Playoff contenders.
Michael Annett (11th, 12 points out of eighth place) – The JR Motorsports driver has just one XFINITY Start at Dover since his return to the series, and that resulted in a 14th-place finish earlier this season. From 2009-13, Michael Annett competed at the Monster Mile ten times and posted just one top-ten, a third-place effort in the 2012 fall race. Overall in his 11 starts at Dover, Annett has an average finish of 13.5 with just the one top-five. This season, he has one top-five and six top-tens through 27 races.
Jeremy Clements (12th, 14 points out of eighth place) – If the underdog of the Playoffs is going to make a move to advance to the next round, Dover is actually the place where he could do it. Jeremy Clements’ pair of top-tens and an average finish of 20.5 through 14 starts at the mile-long facility are among the top-track performances in his portfolio. This season, he has a win at Road America and a top-ten finish to bring his average finish through 27 races to 22.0.
Another Mile Closer to a Championship
Miles has greeted six different race winners in Victory Lane at Dover International Speedway in the past six races (Kyle Larson – spring, 2017; Daniel Suarez – fall, 2016; Erik Jones – spring, 2016; Regan Smith – fall, 2015; Chris Buescher – spring, 2015; and Kyle Busch – fall, 2014).
Of those drivers, just Suarez and Jones are racing in Saturday’s Use Your Melon. Drive Sober 200.
But the most important note for drivers in this year’s XFINITY Series Playoffs is that the last two series champions won at the Monster Mile on the way to the title. Buescher’s spring 2015 win was one of his two victories during his championship run, while Suarez used a fall Dover victory to secure a spot in the Round of 8 en route to the 2016 crown.
None of the 2017 Playoff contenders have visited Victory Lane at Dover International Speedway – in any series. So a win to advance would be a very special one, indeed.