After breaking through for his first NASCAR National Series victory at Dover Motor Speedway last Spring, Ryan Truex has hit his stride while running part-time in the Xfinity Series for Joe Gibbs Racing.
Making his eighth start of the year, the younger brother of NASCAR Cup Series champion Martin Truex, Jr. scored another meaningful victory Friday at Daytona International Speedway, crossing under the caution and checkered flags to win the Wawa 250.
The Mayetta, New Jersey native was able to maneuver his way between the inside and outside lanes throughout the race’s final tw0-lap stretch, keeping his No. 20 Certified Collision Center Toyota GR Supra in the lead until a race-ending caution was thrown after AJ Allmendinger spun from second.
“Just thanks to these guys. I don’t get to race that often, I don’t know what I’m going to do next year, it’s all a work in progress,” Truex said post-race. “Just a great car. We’ve worked hard on our superspeedway stuff, Daytona, Atlanta, I feel like we were behind the eight ball, we came here, all qualified well, and raced well. Shoutout to Tyler [Green] on the roof, what an amazing spotter. He drove this car, I just turned the steering wheel.”
The 32-year-old driver was among the strongest teams in the field during Friday’s 250-mile contest at Daytona, leading 28 laps, second to only AJ Allmendinger, who was a strong opposition to the four Joe Gibbs Racing drivers throughout the entire evening.
Allmendinger, who led a race-high 35 laps, wound up finishing 24th, the final car on the lead lap, after getting turned by Parker Kligerman in the short straightaway between the tri-oval and Turn 1, sending his Campers Inn RV Chevrolet spinning down — and eventually, back up — the racetrack.
When the dust had settled from the last-lap incident, Chandler Smith, a Joe Gibbs Racing teammate to Ryan Truex, finished in the runner-up position, with Parker Kligerman managing to keep his Big Machine Racing Chevrolet headed in the right direction to claim third.
Riley Herbst was fourth, while NASCAR Xfinity Series Playoffs hopeful Ryan Sieg rounded out the top five in what has been a strong three weeks for the flagship entry with RSS Racing.
RESULTS: 2024 NXS Wawa 250 at Daytona
In sixth place, Jordan Anderson recorded his second top-10 finish of the season in his fourth start, while driving the part-time third entry for his self-owned race team, Jordan Anderson Racing. Justin Allgaier was seventh, with Sheldon Creed eighth, Leland Honeyman ninth, and Kyle Weatherman rounding out the top-10.
With a sixth-place finish on Friday, Justin Allgaier moves to the regular-season points lead over Cole Custer, who had a disastrous night after contact on pit road, and then being involved in a second wreck in the later stages of the event, finishing 32nd.
Now, leaving Daytona and heading to Darlington, Allgaier holds a 33-point advantage over the defending NASCAR Xfinity Series champion. Chandler Smith sits third, with Austin Hill and AJ Allmendinger rounding out the top-five in regular-season points.
As superspeedway events usually do, the race featured several multi-car accidents, many of which caused significant damage to several racecars. The first of which happened on the opening lap, when Jeremy Clements spun around and collected six other drivers, including Akinori Ogata, Ryan Ellis, Gus Dean, and Austin Hill, a favorite for the event.
Jesse Love, Hill’s teammate at Richard Childress Racing, would trigger another incident later in the going when contact between him and Jeb Burton collected several vehicles in the first corner. Just a couple of laps later, Jeffrey Earnhardt would get collected, along with several others, in a wreck in Turn 3.
After Friday’s Wawa 250, the NASCAR Xfinity Series heads to Darlington Raceway.
