It was an unusually cold day at Texas Motor Speedway for the My Bariatric Solutions 300, but that didn’t stop Ryan Blaney from taking the No. 22 Penske Racing Ford into Victory Lane.
He dominated the race by leading 132 of 200 laps. Once he took the lead with 47 laps left to go in the race, he was untouchable. This is Blaney’s seventh career Xfinity Series win and his first at Texas.
“The car was great, pit stops were great all day,” Blaney commented. “I couldn’t ask more of this team.” He added, “It’s finally nice to win one here at Texas.”
Stage 1 would get off to a rather rough start seeing three cautions within the first 16 laps for single car incidents. The race would settle down for the remainder of the stage with Blaney having led every lap and winning the stage.
Stage 2 would once again see Blaney up front at the beginning but he would fall back mid-stage and ChristopherBell would take over as the leader. Only two cautions were thrown, the second would see a last-lap shootout to end the stage as Brandon Jones would take the lead and the stage win.
The final stage of the race would only have one caution for Stage 2 winner Jones, who would see the wall after getting loose. Blaney would once again find himself up front with second place Christopher Bell trying hard to catch up to him but unable to close the gap.
Bell stated, “We were able to get to the front, but not quite enough to get a run at the 22 yet.” He added, “I felt like we were pretty equal at times, but overall he was just a little bit better than us.”
Daniel Hemric brought his No. 21 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet home in third place today. Cole Custer and Ryan Preece would round out the top five. Matt Tifft, Jamie McMurray, Elliott Sadler, Austin Cindric, and Spencer Gallagher finished sixth through 10th, respectively.
Sadler leads the Xfinity Series point standings with 228 points, Reddick is in second with 217 points followed by Bell in third with 208 points. Hemric is in fourth with 203 and Allgaier rounds out the top five with 196 points.
Today’s race was the first Dash 4 Cash race and the top four drivers who are eligible for the $100,000 prize at Bristol Motor Speedway are Christopher Bell, Daniel Hemric, Cole Custer, and Ryan Preece.
The Xfinity Series will head next to Bristol Motor Speedway on April 14.
Texas NXS Unofficial Results 4-7-18
