It felt like the finish would never come in the NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Charlotte Saturday, with four cautions in quick succession in the final twenty laps.
But through it all, William Byron was able to continue his climb to the front, and emerge victorious when the dust settled to take the checkered flag in the BetMGM 300. It marked Byron’s first win at Charlotte Motor Speedway, his home track, in any series, which meant a lot to him and his family.
“It’s cool. This is a huge win for me personally and my family,” he said. “We grew up attending this racetrack, grew up ten miles from here, and I’m a true Charlotte native. This is going to be a fun one to celebrate, and we’ve got another one tomorrow, so it’ll be a really special weekend.”
He didn’t make it easy for himself, though. After starting fourth, Byron was able to get to the lead and took the first and second stage wins. But during pitstops in the second stage break, Byron was penalized for speeding and sent to the rear. It took him all of the final stage to get back to the front.
However, he had arrived back at the front by the final restart in Overtime. Byron had pitted along with most of the rest of the field in the first of the series of cautions with twenty to go while Justin Allgaier and a few leaders had stayed out. After clearing all the other cars with fresh tires in the first set of corners on the restart, Byron powered by Allgaier with the tire advantage and never looked back.
“I was pretty bummed out, I felt like I had given the race away,” Byron said of the speeding penalty. “Just appreciate the guys sticking with me, and once we got that last set of tires on I knew we were going to get some spots.
“It was cool to be on offense there at the end, and just to have that kind of restart and clear those guys was fun.”
Fittingly enough for a race that featured eleven cautions for 51 laps, the race ended under caution because of a multi-car crash on the final lap. Fortunately, the field was able to keep it together to see the white flag in Overtime, with a final lap that featured an impressive save by Ryan Sieg from the middle of the pack and Allgaier battling for the lead.
Behind Byron, Connor Zilisch and Nicholas Sanchez ended up second and third also on new tires, with Allgaier falling back to finish fourth after leading on the restart.
The run for Zilisch, competing up front all race and having a shot to win, was an especially strong recovery for the driver since he was out of the car for the previous race at Texas after injuring his back in a hard Talladega crash.
“I feel good, no problems at all,” Zilisch said. “Second place is never fun, but very grateful for my entire Jarrett Chevrolet team. Our car was as fast as Xfinity Mobile, just didn’t have enough on the last restart: we had a tire rub, I don’t think that was helping us, we had a motor that was stumbling all day long. To come away second with really good stage points is a good day, but you always want more.”
Nick Sanchez was perfectly happy with the podium finish, a good result for his Big Machine Racing team and his best since joining the organization this year.
“I think everyone there raced really respectfully, so that was nice,” Sanchez said of the restart. “I’ve been in position to get top fives so many times, so right there I was going for the win, but I was just trying to bring it home in one piece. I’m glad I did that, we finished where we should, and, yeah, just keep on building… Really good positive momentum.”
Allgaier, on the other hand, was not at all happy with the result after watching a win slip away in the course of two laps, especially since he led the most laps (103 of 205) of any driver in the race.
“Disappointed,” Allgaier summed up his emotions. “You know, I made a decision there to stay out. I knew there would be a lot of gains on pit road, I kind of thought they would be a little further away, but all those cautions right there allowed the guys who took four [tires] to get caught up. So this one’s on my shoulders.
“Wanted to win today. Probably should’ve won had we just pitted with the field. It is my daughter’s birthday and she wanted a trophy for her birthday and I came up short on that. Disappointed. I’ll go back and kick myself on this one.
“Proud of this team, proud of the effort from everybody at JR Motorsports. Just really frustrated,” Allgaier concluded.
Nevertheless, Allgaier, the reigning series champion, was able to extend his Xfinity series Championship points lead, and now has a 72-point advantage over Austin Hill in second and a 93-point advantage over Sam Mayer in third.
Allgaier’s JR Motorsports teammate Sammy Smith was originally scored fifth but in post-race inspection his car was disqualified for failing to meet the minimum weight requirement. That moved him to the bottom of the finishing order and moved Dean Thompson up to round out the top five.
Josh Williams, Austin Hill, Ryan Ellis, Christian Eckes all earned a top ten, and after the Smith DQ, Sheldon Creed was moved up from 11th giving him a much needed top 10.
The Xfinity Series returns in one week at Nashville Superspeedway.
