There is nothing like a night race at Bristol Motor Speedway and the Food City 300 was no exception. It was action-packed, start to finish, with beating and banging for every position. The one thing that stayed the same was Kyle Larson.
Larson dominated the field in his No. 42 Chip Ganassi Racing Chevy to win his fourth NASCAR Xfinity Series race of the season and his first win at Bristol Motor Speedway. He won all three stages of the race and fought off a hard-charging Christopher Bell in his No. 20 Joe Gibbs Toyota, in overtime, to claim the checkered flag.
“It feels really good,” said a smiling Larson. “I wish Kyle Busch hadn’t had his problems so I could’ve raced him. It still feels really, really cool to win a race here finally at Bristol. I’ve been close so many times. It’s my best race track by far, this and Homestead.” Another grin, “It was cool to win!”
Stage 1 had just one caution and it was a stunner. At Lap 70 fans saw Busch get into the wall and see his day end with an upper arm failure in the right front tire. Busch had started on the pole and led every lap to this point. Larson would gain the lead and the stage win.
Stage 2 had a few cautions, however, none of them were for anything serious. Larson would stay at the front while others battled for position behind him. Like in the previous stage, Larson would be the winner of Stage 2.
The final stage teams were looking closely at the radar for rain that was heading toward the track. Drivers started to really make their moves in case the race would be rain-shortened so there was a lot of action going on. Elliott Sadler and Bell had a great battle for the lead when Larson had made his pit stop, but once again Larson would get the lead back.
A late caution would force the race into overtime and gave Bell his best chance to beat Larson, but Larson kept his traditional high line and took the victory. Justin Allgaier in his No. 7 JR Motorsports would bring home third place.
“We struggled just a little bit all night in the long run,” stated Allgaier. “The restarts are where we felt we would have to make as much hay as we could. I’m really just proud of all these guys. We didn’t have the strongest car tonight but they kept working on it in the pits. They did a great job, we just came up a little bit short there in the end.”
Cole Custer and Joey Logano would round out the top five. Elliott Sadler, Michael Annett, Chase Elliott, Tyler Reddick, and Matt Tifft finished sixth through 10th, respectively.
Bell leads the Xfinity Series standings with 810 points, Allgaier is in second with 797 points, Sadler is in third with 793 points, Custer is in fourth with 791 points, rounding out the top five is Daniel Hemric with 768 points.
The Xfinity Series will head next to Road America on Saturday, Aug. 25.
NASCAR Xfinity Series Food City 300 Results
1. Kyle Larson
2. Christopher Bell
3. Justin Allgaier
4. Cole Custer
5. Joey Logano
6. Elliott Sadler
7. Michael Annett
8. Chase Elliott
9. Tyler Reddick
10. Matt Tifft
11. Ryan Sieg
12. Ross Chastain
13. Jeremy Clements
14. Austin Cindric
15. Ty Dillon
16. Garrett Smithley
17. Ryan Reed
18. Joey Gase
19. BJ McLeod
20. Ja Junior Avila
21. David Starr
22. Ryan Truex
23. Alex Labbe
24. Daniel Hemric
25. Spencer Boyd
26. Jeff Green
27. Bayley Currey
28. Josh Williams
29. Brandon Jones
30. Chad Finchum
31. Stephen Leicht
32. Vinnie Miller
33. Carl Long
34. Chase Briscoe
35. Josh Bilicki
36. Kyle Busch
37. Ray Black Jr.
38. Timmy Hill
39. Morgan Shepherd
40. JJ Yaley
