After several weeks of unhappy fans, lackluster racing, and multiple Sprint Cup regulars winning all of the XFINITY Series events, Saturday’s Fitzgerald Glider Kits 300 provided a much-needed shot in the arm for a division struggling with credibility. Polesitter Erik Jones passed Cup regular Kyle Larson with an aggressive maneuver with three laps remaining and managed to hold off teammate Kyle Busch to earn his third-career win after leading 62 laps. Jones became the first XFINITY Series regular to win a race since Regan Smith won at Dover last fall.
The race yesterday was everything that every other XFINITY race this season hasn’t been: Exciting.
There were multiple lead changes (10). There was plenty of beating and banging for the lead. There were plenty of tense moments. And in the end, thankfully, a XFINITY Series regular won a race, guaranteeing that there won’t be an absolute shutout of those guys from Victory Lane in 2016.
It’s old news that the XFINITY Series has been suffering recently. Multiple races have been shutouts, with Cup regulars often leading every lap, sometimes by huge margins. In 2015, six XFINITY regulars won in 33 events. In 2014, that number was nine. XFINITY regulars have been getting the short end of the stick regarding success in the division, so to see Jones taking his No. 20 and muscling it past a pair of established Cup stars was good to see, from both the division’s standpoint and from the fan’s standpoint.
Will this ultimately fix the big problem that the series is facing? No. That looks to be a long way off. But that’s not going to take away what a success Saturday’s race was. The heat races were a bit of a bore, but that was understandable; the drivers wanted to take care of their cars for the main, where it mattered. Should every XFINITY event feature qualifiers and a main event? Probably not. But if nothing is going to be done to address the Cup drivers running rampant in the series, then let the powers that be possibly look into shortening the races. That, or possibly bringing back some of the old tracks that put the division on the map (Gateway, Pikes Peak, Nashville Fairgrounds).
Whatever the case, wherever the division goes from here, it’s obvious that NASCAR needs to look at Saturday’s race and properly gauge the reaction of the fans as well as the series regulars. Twitter blew up with rave reviews of the event, drivers and fans alike were singing praises, and many were glad to see legitimate racing at Bristol for the first time in a long time, considering the racing product had declined following Bruton Smith’s “renovation” of the track in 2007. So much can be done for this struggling division based off of Saturday’s race, and fans and drivers can only keep their fingers crossed that something will be done.
