Following Richard Childress Racing driver Austin Hill's dramatic win at Talladega, the NASCAR Xfinity Series made the trip to Texas Motor Speedway on Saturday for the running of the Andy's Frozen Custard 300, which saw Kyle Larson win his second race of the season in the series. Larson was subbing in the JR Motorsports No. 88 Chevrolet for rookie Connor Zilisch, who missed Saturday's race due to a lower back injury he suffered on the final lap of the Talladega race.
After practice and qualifying were rained out on Friday, the lineup was set by NASCAR's metric, which takes into account each driver's finishing position from the previous race (70 percent) and the team's position in owner's points (30%). That put Hill on the pole for the 200-lap, 300-mile race in the Lone Star State.
It took some time for the race to get going with multiple early cautions. Separate spins from Ryan Ellis and Josh Bilicki on the first lap brought out the first stoppage of the day. The race would feature two more cautions in the opening 20 laps before Justin Allgaier would claim the Stage 1 win, becoming the third driver in series history (Kyle Busch, Kevin Harvick) to lead 500 laps at the track in his career.
Stage 2 was clean and green until Kris Wright spun down the backstretch from 27th, giving the stage win to Hill under caution. It did not take long for an incident once the final stage began on Lap 98, with an 11-car crash just past the start-finish line, collecting notables Riley Herbst, Corey Day, Sam Mayer, Taylor Gray and Josh Williams. Moments later on Lap 104, Haas Factory Team's Sheldon Creed suffered his third DNF in the last four races after spinning into the inside wall on the backstretch while battling for third.
The longest green-flag run of the race took place from Lap 113 until a caution on Lap 156 for Allgaier, who made contact with the much slower No. 5 of Wright. The defending series champion led a race-high 99 laps, but left with nothing to show for it. Three more cautions late would set up a double-overtime finish, which marked the first overtime finish for the Xfinity Series at Texas since 2021.
NASCAR Xfinity Series: Larson charges late to win
With some great restarts in the closing laps, Larson made a late surge to win his second Xfinity Series race of the season on Saturday. With a margin of victory of 1.265 seconds over Gray, who achieved a career-best finish of second, Larson led 32 laps and capitalized in his fill-in role for the injured Zilisch. It is Larson's second series win at the 1.5-mile track and the 17th of his career.
Full Andy's Frozen Custard 300 finishing order and points results
Andy's Frozen Custard 300 finishing position | Driver | Points |
---|---|---|
Winner | Kyle Larson | 0 |
2nd | Taylor Gray | 36 |
3rd | Riley Herbst | 0 |
4th | Austin Hill | 50 |
5th | Sam Mayer | 44 |
6th | Harrison Burton | 31 |
7th | Jesse Love | 34 |
8th | Ryan Sieg | 33 |
9th | Brandon Jones | 33 |
10th | Jeb Burton | 29 |
11th | Daniel Dye | 26 |
12th | Anthony Alfredo | 26 |
13th | William Sawalich | 24 |
14th | Parker Retzlaff | 23 |
15th | Matt DiBenedetto | 22 |
16th | Corey Day | 24 |
17th | Brennan Poole | 20 |
18th | Sammy Smith | 19 |
19th | Carson Kvapil | 18 |
20th | Nick Sanchez | 32 |
21st | Mason Massey | 16 |
22nd | Kyle Sieg | 15 |
23rd | Ryan Ellis | 14 |
24th | Blaine Perkins | 13 |
25th | Joey Gase | 12 |
26th | Mason Maggio | 11 |
27th | Dean Thompson | 10 |
28th | Josh Bilicki | 9 |
29th | Nick Leitz | 8 |
30th | Garrett Smithley | 7 |
31st | Jeremy Clements | 6 |
32nd | Katherine Legge | 0 |
33rd | Kris Wright | 5 |
34th | Leland Honeyman | 3 |
35th | Justin Allgaier | 21 |
36th | Sheldon Creed | 14 |
37th | Josh Williams | 1 |
38th | Christian Eckes | 1 |
Despite a frustating end to his day on Saturday, Allgaier remains the points leader (+51) over Hill. Hill, Allgaier, Zilisch, Jesse Love, Sammy Smith and Brandon Jones remain the only full-time drivers in the series to visit victory lane this season, putting them atop the playoff leaderboard. After a two-week break, the Xfinity Series will return to action at Charlotte Motor Speedway for the running of the BetMGM 300 on Saturday, May 24 (4:30 p.m. ET, The CW, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Full-time Cup Series driver Chase Elliott is the defending race winner.