The NASCAR Xfinity Series ‘Big Three’ have emerged as the top contenders in the Final Four to compete for the championship trophy at Homestead Miami in November. Tyler Reddick (three), the series points leader, Christopher Bell (four) in second and Cole Custer (three) in third are racing for wins consistently this season. Combined they have ten victories in 14 events.
Remember Cup Series driver Joey Logano last year when he said, “There’s the Big Three and Me,” to remind everyone there could be someone other than one of the ‘Big Three’ to win in the end. He backed that up by winning his first championship trophy when it was all said and done.
So, who is that driver in the Xfinity Series this year?
There are three drivers next in line with the potential to take the last Final Four spot at Homestead giving them the chance to grab the championship away from the ‘Big Three.’ Justin Allgaier with JR Motorsports, Austin Cindric with Team Penske, and Chase Briscoe with Stewart Haas Racing with Fred Biagi.
All three say they want to be that person although they are still looking for their first win of the season, which has been tough getting past the ‘Big Three’ winners.
Justin Allgaier at JR Motorsports has seven top-five and eight top-ten finishes with an average finish of 11.1 for the season. He’s fourth in the series point standings and first in line behind the ‘Big Three.’
‘I’d like to say it’s going to be us,” says Allgaier about his chances of taking that fourth spot. “I feel like for us this year we haven’t necessarily fired off like we want to. Really for me from last year to now is mediocre. We’ve had good runs, we’ve good finishes. I mean we’ve had some top-twos and some top-threes and we’ve done the things we’ve needed to do as far as finishes, but just for raw speed, we’ve needed to find that. The problem is that it’s not just one thing, It’s not an area that you can just flip a switch and just say this is where we need to be better.”
Austin Cindric at Team Penske is next sitting fifth in the series point standings with 11 top-ten and four top-five finishes this season. Cindric’s average finish of 8.2 so far this season is a bit better than Allgaier’s.
“Well I don’t know why it can’t be us,” says Cindric about his team being in the Final Four. “We have a really strong team. I feel like the things I’m learning are coming together so far this year. We’ve had good improvement. I think we have a little bit more to find in myself, and a little more to find in my cars to be where those guys are. What they’ve been able to do this year is pretty impressive, but we still have a long way to go.”
Chase Briscoe at Stewart Haas Racing with Fred Biagi has the best average finish of the group at 7.6 along with 11 top-tens and six top-fives.
“I feel like me and Justin are kind of like right there borderline going back and forth,” says Briscoe about his chances at the fourth spot. “I feel like when we do our job right, I feel like we’re pretty comfortable as the fourth guy, but we haven’t been able to do that consistently yet. So, we just got to get better and I feel as the season’s gone on, we’ve gotten better at doing that. We’ve had more speed consistently, but we still haven’t quite been where we need to be. So, hopefully, this weekend we can kind of start that swing. I think we’ve run 15 or 16 weeks in a row now, so it’d be nice to kind of get on a roll and hopefully emerge ourselves as that fourth guy.”
Watch all three drivers compete in the Xfinity Series race the Camping World 300, Saturday, June 29th at 3:30 pm ET on NBCSN.