Aric Almirola delivers a bold strategy to win the NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Bristol Motor Speedway on Friday night in the Food City 300.
BRISTOL, Tenn. – 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.
Almirola Delivers Bold Strategy
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. 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-maneuver, and out-last 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 full-time 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.”
The Food City 300 Results
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 round out the top ten. Three rookies are represented in the group. The top seven finishers were all playoff drivers. Ten of the 12 playoff competitors finished 14th or higher.
The NASCAR Xfinity Series Point Standings
Sammy Smith went into the race ranked sixth in the Playoff standings. But he took the biggest championship hit of the night. He suffered an early problem with only 55 laps into the race. Smith’s No. 8 JR Motorsports Chevrolet had to retire to the garage for an engine issue. He is now 12th at 24 points below the cutoff line. Two races are remaining in this opening round.
“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. Kvapil is 69 back, while Burton, in fifth place, is now separated from tenth-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 are three points behind Gray. Love’s veteran teammate Austin Hill is 16 points back. Smith drops into the 12th slot after round one of the seven-race title run.
Next Up
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.