Connor Zilisch took his 10th victory of the NASCAR Xfinity Series season in yet another dominant performance in Saturday’s Blue Cross NC 250 at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval, but Zilisch’s dominance took a backseat to the drama of the Playoffs, thanks to a strange decision by NASCAR Race Control over the final couple of laps.
Race Results:
Blue Cross NC 250 at the Charlotte Roval
Zilisch, who started from the pole, won Stage 1 and led a race-high 61 laps in the 68-lap event. The 19-year-old driver would score the victory by a margin of 1.134 seconds over Austin Green, a part-time competitor for Jordan Anderson Racing, who was driving the No. 87 Chevrolet on Saturday.
“So much fun getting to race in my hometown, JR Motorsports cars were so fast this weekend. And yeah, my WeatherTech Chevrolet was as fast as Xfinity Mobile all day long. First in practice, qualified on the pole, led a lot of laps, and came home with a win,” Zilisch said. “It feels really good to get 10 [wins]. Double digits is pretty awesome for my first year in this series. Now, we just gotta go win a championship.”
Sammy Smith, who ultimately advanced into the Round of 8 of the NASCAR Xfinity Series Playoffs after a lengthy review at the conclusion of the race, finished third. Smith was happy to advance to the next round with a solid performance at the Roval.
“It was a hard-fought day, for sure. We brought speed. I’m very proud of our effort that we put in this week to be able to put ourselves in this position,” Smith explained in a post-race interview on The CW. “We knew it was going to take a lot, so I’m very proud of everyone at JRM, everyone on my team.”
Smith he was followed by Kaz Grala and Connor Mosack inside the top five.
Jeb Burton, William Sawalich, Justin Allgaier, Nick Sanchez, and William Sawalich rounded out the top-10 finishers.
Taylor Gray, the driver of the No. 54 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota, was roughly six points to the good on advancing to the next round of the Playoffs before a caution for a Lap 64 incident involving Sage Karam, which flipped the race on its head and sent things into overtime.
On the ensuing restart, Smith, who had to pit for tires prior to the late race caution, gained tons of track position, as the majority of the field hit pit road going into the final restart. This allowed Smith to have a shot to advance to the Round of 8, but he still needed help from Gray.
He got it as Gray was bogged down in traffic on the restart, and dropped from inside the top-10 to finish. A crash with two laps to go involving Alex Labbe and Brennan Poole looked like a crash that should have led to a caution, but NASCAR race control held onto the yellow flag for nearly an entire lap after the initial incident occurred. On the final lap, the flagman would wave the yellow flag, which would freeze the field.
After NASCAR race control reviewed the tape, it determined that Gray was in 13th at the time of caution, which meant that Smith had topped him by one point to advance to the Round of 8 of the NASCAR Xfinity Series Playoffs.
Had the caution been called with two laps to go, it would have sent the race into double overtime, which would have given Gray a chance to overcome the deficit, but with the flag being held until one lap to go, it set us up for a dramatic wait-out on pit road after the race. Despite exiting the Playoffs heartbreakingly, Gray was in no mood to make excuses after the decision was made.
“Just obviously bummed out. We don’t get to go racing for a championship at the end of the year. Just weren’t good enough. We weren’t good enough today,” Gray explained. “We didn’t have a good Bristol, and we shouldn’t have to even be in this spot. We are though, and we are going to take our loss, and move on to the next four and try to win us a couple of races.”
The eight drivers, who advanced to the NASCAR Xfinity Series Round of 8 on Saturday evening, were Zilisch, Justin Allgaier, Brandon Jones, Sammy Smith, Sheldon Creed, Sam Mayer, Jesse Love, and Carson Kvapil.
Joining Gray in exiting the Playoffs were Nick Sanchez, Austin Hill, and Harrison Burton.
Hill, who competed in the Championship 4 last season, suffered from power issues late in the race and finished 28th. In the end, Hill was eliminated from Playoff contention by 21 points, which ironically was the same amount of points he lost due to being stripped of his earned Playoff Points following a one-race suspension after an incident with Aric Almirola at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
“You win as a team, and you lose as a team. I’m not pointing the finger at anyone. If anyone’s at fault, it’s me for losing the 21 bonus points in the regular season,” Hill said.
Next up for the NASCAR Xfinity Series is the Focused Health 302 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Saturday, October 11. That race will be televised on The CW, and coverage for the event will kick off at 7:30 PM ET. The Performance Racing Network (PRN) and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio will provide the radio broadcast of that race.
