It looked like Ross Chastain had really good odds of holding on for a NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series win in Saturday’s Hy-Vee Perks 250 at Iowa Speedway. However, a caution for a spinning Jeb Burton with five laps remaining sent the race into an overtime finish.
On the first overtime restart attempt on Lap 252, Carson Kvapil came to life and worked around Chastain for the race lead. A multi-car melee ensued, leading to a re-rack at the front of the field. Kvapil was able to fire off the line, and as more chaos ensued behind him, he was able to snag the win.
Race Results: Hy-Vee Perks 250 at Iowa Speedway
Rajah Caruth was able to slice his way to a runner-up finish, but came up 0.343 seconds shy of getting past Kvapil for his first career win.
While Kvapil was happy to collect the victory, he admitted after the race that had the late-race caution in regulation not come out, Chastain likely was going to win the race.
“I think [Chastain] probably had it, if that yellow didn’t come out there at the end,” Kvapil said. “I thought we were fast running him down, but we didn’t have enough there to fill the gap.”
The win for Kvapil is the second of his NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series career, and the wins came consecutively, as he was the winner of the most recent event in the series at Indianapolis Motor Speedway a couple of weekends ago.
“It feels really cool to win again,” Kvapil stated. “But not as big as Indy, I guess you’d say. But just super exciting. It just goes to show what this No. 1 group has, and what they bring to the racetrack. I feel like we weren’t the greatest in the first two Stages, and [crew chief] Rodney [Childers] did his touches to it, and it turned us into a race-winning car.”
William Sawalich claimed a third-place result in the frantic finish, which allowed him to sneak back above the Chase cutline by one point with one race remaining until the start of The Chase, and Ross Chastain would slide back to a fourth-place finish.
Sheldon Creed, Nick Sanchez, Taylor Gray, Dean Thompson, Harrison Burton, and Brennan Poole rounded out the top-10 finishers in the event.
Ryan Sieg, who scored his first career pole position earlier in the race, led every lap of the opening Stage on his path to the Stage 1 win. Unfortunately, his bid to win came to an end as he was heavily involved in the multi-car melee on Lap 252, which sent the race into double-overtime.
Justin Allgaier, the regular-season champion and Stage 2 winner, suffered the same fate and would limp home to a 24th-place finish.
Jesse Love has seen his season start to unravel a bit, and it continued on Saturday evening as he suffered a transmission issue. Love would spend 60 laps getting repairs to his transmission before returning to the track; he would finish 35th.
As a result of the subpar finish, Love, who was runner-up in the standings a few races ago, now sits fourth in the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series standings.
Next up for the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series is a date with the 2.5-mile Daytona International Speedway on Friday, August 28. The Winn-Dixie 250 Powered by Coca-Cola will be televised on The CW, and coverage will kick off at 7:30 PM ET.
The 12-driver Chase for the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series championship field will be fully set following next weekend’s race at Daytona.
