Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Busch gets 98th career Xfinity win
Kyle Busch got his 98th victory in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, winning at Texas for the 10th time when he was never challenged on a final two-lap sprint to the checkered flag.
Busch won by nearly a second Saturday ahead of Austin Cindric, who was coming off two wins at Kentucky last weekend.
After coming back through the field three times in the race, Busch built a 3.3 second-lead before a final caution flag when Joe Graf Jr. made contact with the wall. Busch led only 15 of the 201 laps.
There is only one more Xfinity race this season for Busch, who wants to reach 100 wins in the series. Busch has 212 wins combined in NASCAR’s top three series, with 56 Cup Series wins and 58 in the Truck Series race.
Justin Allgaier regained the lead from Cindric when both pit
ted on lap 159, but was penalized for a blend line penalty when getting back on the track. After doing his pass-through penalty 10 laps later, he dropped two laps off the pace. and wound up finishing fourth, behind series points leader Chase Briscoe.
Cindric led three times for 44 laps. Allgaier was in front four times for 98 laps.
There were no spectators allowed for the Xfinity race, or the Truck Series race on Saturday night, but thousands of fan will be in the stands for the Cup race Sunday.
Noah Gragson, who entered the race second in season points, crashed in Turn 3 on lap 117 after he got loose after the air got taken off his rear with Cindric behind him. There didn’t appear to be any contact. Gragson finished 31st.
Gragson was behind Riley Herbst in a similar incident on five laps into race, when Herbst slammed hard into the outside wall coming out of Turn 4 and ended his day to finish last in the 37-car field. Gragson said on the radio that there was no contact.
“We were just learning the track here at Texas, first time at this speedway and got absolutely drove through by the 9 (Gragson) car,” Herbst said. “Just a little bit of lack of respect.”