BRANDON JONES LEADS TOYOTA IN INCIDENT FILLED XFINITY SERIES AT WATKINS GLEN
Sam Hunt Racing places two Supras in the top-15
WATKINS GLEN, NY (August 9, 2025) – Brandon Jones led Toyota with a ninth-place finish in an incident filled NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Watkins Glen on Saturday evening.
Sam Hunt Racing’s Kaz Grala (11th) and Dean Thompson (13th) battled back from in-race damage and earned two top-15 finishes.
Toyota GAZOO Racing Post-Race Recap
NASCAR Xfinity Series (NXS)
Watkins Glen International
Race 23 of 33 – 200.9 miles, 82 laps
TOYOTA FINISHING POSITIONS
1st, Connor Zilisch*
2nd, Sam Mayer*
3rd, Sammy Smith*
4th, Austin Hill*
5th, Carson Kvapil*
9th, BRANDON JONES
11th, KAZ GRALA
13th, DEAN THOMPSON
18th, TAYLOR GRAY
21st, GLEN REEN
26th, WILLIAM SAWALICH
36th, RILEY HERBST
*non-Toyota driver
TOYOTA QUOTES
BRANDON JONES, No. 20 Menards/Pelonis Toyota GR Supra, Joe Gibbs Racing
Finishing Position: 9th
Wild day, but you came home with a clean race car and a top-10 finish. How was your race?
“I think you look at all of these road courses that you go to, Watkins Glen is almost one of the easiest to drive, which I think just brings everyone so close together. It just pulls the field so close together because the margin for error here is a lot bigger here compared to more of these technical tracks, so you just see more action, I guess, is the term for it. But just difficult to pass, and hard to get off line to make passes. I would get runs on people, and just couldn’t make much of it, and then I had three people behind me, hunting me down. It was just a difficult day for me to get momentum turned around. Given everything that went on today, glad that we got back to the top-10 in our Menards Supra.”
WILLIAM SAWALICH, No. 18 SoundGear Toyota GR Supra, Joe Gibbs Racing
Finishing Position: 26th
Was there anything you could do there?
“Not really. I didn’t even know what I hit until I saw the replay, and apparently, I hit a tire flying through the year, so that’s just our year’s luck. It is what it is. The guys brought a good SoundGear Toyota GR Supra that was as fast as Xfinity Mobile. We had some good battles throughout the day, and had some good speed no matter what happened to us in the race. We had some good restarts, and I can’t be prouder of our team.”
This was a run that you were up front all day. Is that refreshing no matter the result?
“I’m really proud. I’ve been working on road courses this whole season. I’ve been working with Jack Hawksworth in the Toyota simulator, so that has been very beneficial for me. Just anything I can do to learn, I’m trying to do.”
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