Brandon Jones won the NASCAR Xfinity Series race from pole to jump from sixth in the points into the Round of 8 with the win.
The Joe Gibbs Racing driver finished second in the first two stages to Justin Allgaier, who came into the race second in the standings and racked up enough points to move onto the next round, despite a 13th place finish due to a late tire strategy that didn’t pay off.
“That was exactly like how we needed that to go down,” Jones said. “Two really solid stages — no mistakes. The entire day was so well executed. That’s probably by far in my career my most well-executed race.”
Regular season champion Connor Zilisch finished second and also advanced without a win in the round as he heads into next race at the Charlotte Roval the clear favorite looking for his 10th race win of the season.
SUBSCRIBE TO THE FREE AMERICAN CARS AND RACING NEWSLETTER FOR THE LATEST NASCAR UPDATES
“I didn’t feel like our car was winning-capable, except at a point there in stage three, I thought we had a chance at it,” Zilisch said. “We’ll look at it and see what we could have done better. We were just kind of throwing Hail Marys at it all day and trying to make one stick — but it didn’t stick.” The result did earn Zilisch a series-record 16 consecutive top five finishes, however.
Nick Sanchez (-5), Austin Hill (-7), Harrison Burton (-8) and Sammy Smith (-14) sit below the cut-line heading into Charlotte.
Full Results:
