A week after Ty Gibbs took his first career NASCAR Cup Series win behind the wheel of the No. 54 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota, Taylor Gray was able to keep the No. 54 atop the scoring pylon as he took his second career win in Saturday night’s NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series Kansas Lottery 300 at Kansas Speedway.
Gray utilized a short-pitting strategy devised by his crew chief, Jason Ratcliff, on his final pit stop of the race. By pitting a couple of laps earlier than the other dominant drivers in the race, he was able to build a massive lead.
While it was touch-and-go at points in the final laps, as Gray was dealing with lapped traffic, like Brennan Poole, he was able to fend off Sheldon Creed to take the victory. After the race, Gray heaved praise on his crew chief for the race-winning call.
“Yeah, first of all, thank you to everybody at Joe Gibbs Racing, Toyota Racing, Operation 300. And how about Jason Ratcliff? Man, that pit call was awesome,” Gray said.
In all, Gray led 48 laps in the race, and they came consecutively at the end of the event. However, while he didn’t have a dominant night, Gray knew he had a car capable of winning the race, if the cards fell his way on the final run of the race, regardless of the strategy the No. 54 team employed.
“I knew we had a car capable of winning,” Gray explained. “I thought [Brandon Jones] was a little better than us before the green flag cycle, but you just have to stay locked in, right? And needed to be a little bit freer, Jason made a really great adjustment on the car, really good pit call, got us in clean air.”
Sheldon Creed, who had issues in inspection, had to start at the rear of the field in Saturday night’s NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series Kansas Lottery 300 at Kansas Speedway, but the Haas Factory Team driver was able to rally through the field and nearly scored his second career win.
What could he have done more to win the race? Creed doesn’t feel there was much.
“Oh, I don’t know. I was kind of trying everything,” Creed admitted. “I hit the bottom there with, I don’t know, a few [laps] to go, and I thought that might have been somewhere where I could get him. And then we just caught lappers, and they were filling the bottom anytime I wanted to go and try to run it.”
Creed wound up shy of pulling into victory lane by a margin of 0.718 seconds. While it was disappointing to pick up his 16th career runner-up finish, Creed took solace in what he felt was a fun night, where he rallied from the back of the field to the front.
With the runner-up effort, Creed, who was the highest-finishing Dash4Cash competitor, was able to take home an additional $100,000. So, that was another silver lining on the evening for the driver of the No. 00 Haas Factory Team Chevrolet.
Justin Allgaier, the series points leader, came home with another solid third-place finish, and he crossed the finish line ahead of Jesse Love and the 18-year-old Brent Crews, who continued to impress with a fifth-place finish, driving the No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota.
Brandon Jones put together his strongest overall effort of the 2026 season, as he led 67 laps en route to picking up the wins in Stages 1 and 2. However, his bid for the win ended due to an uncontrolled tire penalty on his final pit stop of the evening.
Jones would battle back to finish eighth, but it left the driver wondering what could have been.
Race Results
- 54 – Taylor Gray
- 00 – Sheldon Creed
- 7 – Justin Allgaier
- 2 – Jesse Love
- 19 – Brent Crews
- 88 – William Sawalich
- 0 – Cole Custer
- 20 – Brandon Jones
- 41 – Sam Mayer
- 39 – Ryan Sieg
Click here for the full race results
Thrills And Spills
It was a rough night for some of the 12 drivers who came into the race inside the Chase for the Championship cutline.
Austin Hill, who entered the race sixth in the championship standings, was left seething after an incident with his teammate, Jesse Love, on Lap 38. The two made door-to-door contact, which sent Hill spinning.
The crash, which ended Hill’s night, led to the driver telling his team on his radio, “I’ll remember that.”
Hill would be forced to the garage, and his day was done with a 34th-place finish.
Jesse Love makes contact with his @RCRracing teammate as Austin Hill spins out and takes a hit from William Sawalich. pic.twitter.com/g1N7emiZ2F
— The CW Sports (@TheCW_Sports) April 18, 2026
The crash also involved William Sawalich, who scored his first career win at Rockingham Speedway and came into the race 10th in the standings. Fortunately, for Sawalich, he was able to soldier on and finish the race in 20th.
Corey Day and Sammy Smith, who came into the race above the cutline, were involved in an incident down the backstretch on Lap 101. Ryan Sieg, the first driver outside of the Chase, was also involved in this incident.
Sammy Smith and Corey Day get tangled up to bring out another caution. pic.twitter.com/sEryek3Npw
— The CW Sports (@TheCW_Sports) April 19, 2026
While Smith’s car was the most hampered of the three, all three drivers were able to continue on in the race.
The major highlight of the evening was a frightening crash on Lap 2 of the event, which involved two more hopeful Chase contenders, Carson Kvapil and Parker Retzlaff.
Kvapil, who started on the pole following the cancellation of qualifying on Friday afternoon, received contact on the exit of Turn 2 from William Byron, which sent him into the outside wall. Retzlaff had nowhere to go and collided with Kvapil, which sent Kvapil’s No. 1 Chevrolet flipping wildly down the backstretch.
Fortunately, Kvapil and Retzlaff walked away from the crash, but they were both done for the evening and were credited with finishes of 36th and 37th.
That wild crash led to a red flag period, which lasted a little over 12 minutes.
Race To The Chase
After Saturday night’s race, which was the 10th race of the 2026 season, Justin Allgaier holds a solid 131-point lead for the regular-season championship fight. With 14 races remaining until the start of the Chase, here is the updated Chase Grid:
- Justin Allgaier, +291 points
- Sheldon Creed, +160
- Jesse Love, +142
- Corey Day, +115
- Brandon Jones, +95
- Sammy Smith, +81
- Carson Kvapil, +72
- Austin Hill, +67
- Taylor Gray, +65
- William Sawalich, +42
- Parker Retzlaff, +29
- Rajah Caruth, +25
- Ryan Sieg, -25 points
- Sam Mayer, -29
- Brennan Poole, -55
- Brent Crews, -64
- Jeb Burton, -65
The Next Race
Next Up for the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series is the Ag-Pro 300 at Talladega Superspeedway on Saturday, April 25. That race will be televised on The CW, and television coverage is set to begin at 4:00 PM ET. The Motor Racing Network (MRN) and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio will provide the radio broadcast of that event.
Austin Hill, who has 11 drafting-track victories since the 2022 NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series season, is the defending champion of the Ag-Pro 300 at Talladega Superspeedway.
