SPARTA, Ky. — Last time NASCAR ventured into the Bluegrass State, carnage was the name of the game with the XFINITY Series. Erik Jones dominated the race, only to see his hopes dashed by a late race wreck, Ash Ketchum offered himself as a peace offering to a hoard of attacking Spearow and…okay, that last one was actually from the first episode of Pokémon, but needless to say, a lot happened.
When all was said and done, Elliott Sadler stood victorious while dominant drivers of the night Jones and Ty Dillon were defeated by the same race-ending wreck. While Jones recovered from this setback and was among the championship four XFINITY drivers in last November’s Ford 300 at Homestead-Miami Speedway, Dillon couldn’t recover and was knocked out in the first round.
This 12-caution 13-car behind the wall standalone XFINITY Series race was arguably the most carnage-filled and chaotic of any race during the XFINITY Series playoffs last season.
Carnage was the case with last July’s Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race, in which 10 of the 11 cautions were related to a wreck or spin. Surprisingly, mayhem wasn’t the case with last July’s XFINITY and Truck race.
The number of wrecks we did see, however, shouldn’t come as a surprise, given that the track was completely resurfaced for the first time in its history in January of that year. You should expect more of the same this time around with the additional layer of asphalt laid down by the track last October.
And when you ask drivers, like Jones, they’ll tell you it’s essentially a full repave.
“It’s back to, you know, a full repave again essentially,” he said. “They came and they did the tire dragon before we got on track but it rained the entire first day so it washed it all off and then had to kind of run it back in, so it felt like Texas really – just a full repave. Hopefully with the trucks being out there all day yesterday, truck race tonight, XFINITY practice today, it’ll be pretty worked in for the Cup cars here tomorrow, but it’s still a whole new repave, a whole new deal again.”
