Xfinity kicked off their season Saturday with a dramatic three-hour battle at Daytona. Similar to the truck race the night before, the drivers seemed to behave in the first two stages better than the third. After five cautions in overtime, Tyler Reddick won the race.
Tyler Reddick Wins Powershares QQQ 300
This became Reddick’s second Xfinity series win and his second race win at Daytona (he won the 2015 Camping World Truck Series race under Keselowski Racing).
Speaking of Brad Keselowski, he was the third man in the booth for commentary tonight. Daniel Hemric had pole position for this race, with Kyle Larson accompanying him in the front row. Joey Logano started at the back of the pack, working his way upto 7th by the fourth lap. Logano stayed in the top 5 for the majority of this race.
First caution came out when Austin Cindric spun out, taking Brandon Jones and Christopher Bell with him. Bell and Cindric did not return to the race afterwards. The race went back to green on lap 14, just 6 laps before the end of Stage 1. Kyle Larson won the stage, battling off Joey Logano and Justin Allgaier.
Stage 2 had no wrecking, but it had stellar racing. Elliott, Logano and Larson battled for the lead, with Elliott taking the flag. After pitting under a Stage 2 yellow flag, Aric Almirola and Daniel Hemric were in the front row. The lead was shuffling between Sadler, Larson and Logano.
The yellow flag came out with 22 laps to go. Michael Annett tipped Cole Custer, causing a wreck involving Daniel Hemric, Jeff Green, Joey Gase & Brandon Brown. We went back to green with Larson and Logano in the front row.
With 14 laps left another yellow flag came out. Michael Annett and Garrett Smithley were involved in an incident. Annett had smoke coming out of his car. With under 10 laps left, Vinnie Miller spun out. With 3 laps to go, Elliott Sadler spun out, not making any contact with the walls. This brought out yet another caution, bringing the race into NASCAR Overtime.
On the first overtime restart of many more to come, there was a huge wreck. Car numbers 22, 86, 15, 19, 3, 2, 98, 7, 52, 21 & 51 were all involved in a crash on the long straightaway. It was originally planned that Suarez and Reed would restart in the front row, but Suarez came to a full stop due to running out of gas.
Upon the second restart, Gallagher spun out. Attempt number three, someone crashed on the last turn. On attempt number four, Dylan Lupton spun out. The race finally closed out after the fifth attempt. The front row was Reddick and Reed. In an extremely close finish, where you could only tell seconds after the finish who actually won.
The preliminaries have come and gone, and now the only thing left this speedweek is the main event, the Daytona 500. Xfinity returns next week in Atlanta for the Rinnai 250.
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