2. Noah Gragson couldn't get it done during the NASCAR Xfinity Series race
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTme8aKUTCo
The chaos that played out Friday night during the Camping World Truck Series race was only a precursor for what fans and drivers could expect in The Xfinity Series on Saturday afternoon. In fact, between the race getting red-flagged for weather and several high stakes restarts throughout the evening, you could definitely make the case that fans got their money's worth.
Speaking of money, Las Vegas native Noah Gragson put all his money down on short pitting with inside 80 laps to go, which gave him fresher tires than the entire field. This also forced the rest of the drivers to pit in order to avoid losing time to Gragson, eventually giving him the lead again. But the caveat was that he was two laps short on fuel, forcing him to conserve in order to finish the race.
While Gragson tried to fall back in line and run through the 1.5-mile track at half throttle, he quickly lost three seconds to the leader, Justin Allgaier. Then he lost the second position to Ty Gibbs and had to recover second place on several restarts. There were even two occasions where Gragson was able to pull away from the field on the restart, only to get bottled up again when the caution came back out.
Unfortunately for Gragson, he fell victim to a bad restart with six laps to go and was passed by Ty Gibbs. The Joe Gibbs Racing driver then managed to hold off Gragson until a last-lap caution ended the race. This marked Gibbs's first win of the season and gives him a guaranteed spot in the playoffs come fall.
Although Gibbs capturing the checkered flag was a nice ending to an eventful day, it didn't come without controversy. Gibbs, who is competing in his first full-time season in the Xfinity Series, accidentally made contact with fellow driver Ryan Sieg earlier in the race. Sieg tried to get revenge on him later on in the race but ended up taking himself out in the process.
"First of all, thank you to my lord and savior Jesus Christ," Gibbs said after winning the race. "Second, want to apologize to the No. 39 team (Sieg), my mistake putting them in the fence, so I want to say sorry."
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