Brandon Brown and the Brandonbilt Motorsports team achieved an emotional victory in a wild NASCAR Xfinity Series Sparks Energy 300 at Talladega Superspeedway on Saturday evening.
This marks the first-career victory for the 28-year old driver from Virginia.
“Oh my god, this is a dream come true!” Brown shouted after climbing from his No. 68 machine. “Oh my god, dad we did it! Let’s go!”
The win came six laps shy of the scheduled race distance, as NASCAR determined it was too dark to conclude the race. A nine-car crash on lap 101 of Saturday’s race is what moved the race into a caution flag period, which the race would never restart from.
That caution started when Brett Moffitt pushed Harrison Burton a little too much, which sent the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing machine around causing a big pile up.
Here is video of the final caution of the race:
Expensive.
Big crash takes out a ton of cars late at @Talladega. #NASCAR pic.twitter.com/lomqMsluqT
— NASCAR on NBC (@NASCARonNBC) October 2, 2021
Brown had the lead at the time of caution, which secured his first-ever win in NASCAR Xfinity Series competition.
“This is just — everything we’ve hoped and dreamed for, this is everything I’ve ever wanted to do — was to take the trophy home to mom and dad,” Brown stated with emotion.
Playoff contenders Brandon Jones, Justin Allgaier and Daniel Hemric finished second through fourth.
While Jones escaped with a great runner-up finish, he and his No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing team believe they won Saturday’s race. However, as NASCAR expected to continue the race when the caution came out, they went to scoring loops to determine the running order of the race.
In moments, where NASCAR expects the race to be decided, they look at where cars were running at the time of caution by way of video replay.
Jordan Anderson recorded an ultra solid fifth-place finish in his own No. 31 Jordan Anderson Racing Chevrolet Camaro.
Justin Haley, Jeb Burton, Austin Cindric, Josh Berry and Joe Graf Jr. rounded out the top-10 finishers in Saturday’s race at Talladega.
