In a wild and unpredictable NASCAR Xfinity Series Beef. It’s What’s For Dinner. 300 at Daytona International Speedway, which saw all but nine cars involved in incidents throughout the night, Austin Cindric reigned supreme and held off Brett Moffitt for his first win of the 2021 season.
For Cindric, he picked up where he left off in 2020. Last season, Cindric won six races en route to a NASCAR Xfinity Series championship, now he has a Daytona trophy to put on his mantle.
“Oh my goodness. What an awesome race,” Cindric said. “What a really fast Verizon 5G Ford Mustang. Unbelievable effort by everyone at Team Penske. Obviously, coming off a lot of momentum winning the championship last year, but nothing is guaranteed.”
Cindric will now shift his focus to his first-career start in the NASCAR Cup Series in the Daytona 500 on Sunday.
The runner-up finish marks the best-career finish for Moffitt in his NASCAR Xfinity Series career, and it also marks the best finish for Our Motorsports, which jumped into the NASCAR Xfinity Series a season ago.
So, what could Moffitt have done to change the outcome of the race?
“Start up front. I don’t know,” Moffitt quipped. “With how few cars we had, the energy runs weren’t huge. The 10 did an awesome job pushing me, so thank you to him. Just once the 22 got up front, anytime I got within a car length, I just pushed him farther forward.”
Following Cindric and Moffitt to the finish line were Harrison Burton in third, Jeb Burton came home fourth in his battered Kaulig Racing car and AJ Allmendinger capped off the top-five.
Brandon Brown, Myatt Snider, Brandon Gdovic, Daniel Hemric and Jason White rounded out the top-10 finishers.
Saturday’s race featured nine cautions, and the intensity just grew with each passing lap.
It looked like Ty Dillon, who suffered heartbreak in his attempt to make the 2021 Daytona 500, could score a feel-good win in this race. However, with under 20 laps to go, Dillon got a shove from Josh Berry, which sent him to the outside of his teammate Daniel Hemric. When the duo got to the corner, all hell broke loose and we had a 14-car melee.
Video: Ty Dillon and Daniel Hemric Spark Huge Crash With Under 20 Laps to Go
Despite the damage, Hemric rebounded to finish ninth, while Dillon came home 14th.
