Wild Daytona Xfinity Race Goes To Ryan Truex In Overtime

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Ryan Truex captured his second NASCAR Xfinity Series win of the season in a frantic, overtime-extended Wawa 250 powered by Coca-Cola Friday night at Daytona Int’l Speedway.

Truex led six times for 28 laps in the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota GR Supra, but it was the final restart at the World Center of Racing that made all the difference for the Mayetta, N.J., native.

After a six-car crash in turn four led to a 12-minute red flag stoppage and necessitated extra distance, Truex lined up for the two-lap overtime sprint with Stewart-Haas Racing’s Riley Herbst at his bumper, getting a solid push through turns one and two to work clear to the race lead.

Truex moved high down the backstretch, in order to cover a run from the Chevrolet duo of A.J. Allmendinger and Parker Kligerman, and led at the white flag as the outside lane continued to build momentum.

At that point, Kligerman had a run coming from behind by Chandler Smith and began to dart to the bottom to potentially challenge for the win.

When Allmendinger tried to move down in front of Kligerman, he mis-timed the move a split second too late, with Kligerman’s push going into the right-rear of the bumper and sending Allmendinger spinning to the inside of turn one.

Though the longtime Xfinity Series veteran tried to save his race car and continue, he ultimately washed up the turn-one banking and into the wall, ending up in the path of several stragglers behind the main pack.

The incident forced NASCAR officials to display the seventh and final yellow flag of the race, freezing the field in the middle of the final lap with Truex out in front of the field.

It marked the 32-year-old, part-time competitor’s third career Xfinity Series victory and first at a track other than Dover (Del.) Motor Speedway. He’s won twice in eight starts this year for a 25-percent success rate.

“Thanks to all these [Joe Gibbs Racing] guys, man, what a night,” said Truex after celebrating on the frontstretch with a smoky burnout. “I don’t get to race that often. I don’t know what I’m going to do next year. It’s all a work in progress, but we just had a great car.

“As an organization, we’ve worked hard on our superspeedway stuff. At Daytona [in February] and Atlanta, I feel like we were behind the eight-ball, but we came here, all [the Toyotas] qualified well, and all raced well too. I felt good this week coming in, and I knew we’d have a shot … I just feel like every time I’m here I end up making a dumb mistake or getting caught up in a wreck.

“I’m so glad we finally finished one out.”

Truex credited his spotter, veteran Tyler Green, for helping him make many of the late defensive maneuvers that ultimately put him out front when it mattered most.

“Shout out to Tyler up on the roof. What an amazing spotter,” Truex noted. “Honestly, he drove this car. I just turned the steering wheel.

“I can’t believe this. To win at Daytona … it’s everything in our sport.”

A night that was relatively calm – by Daytona’s standards – through the middle of the race started chaotic and ended in a similar fashion.

Nine cars were collected in an opening-lap incident on the backstretch, after Jeremy Clements went spinning into the runoff area, leading others behind him to check up and slide out of control.

Both Ryan Ellis and Akinori Ogata were eliminated in that melee, while most of the night’s contenders survived to the late stages of the summer classic at the World Center of Racing.

Rookie Jesse Love got turned in the middle of the pack in the tri-oval after a four-wide scramble around him went wrong, igniting another nine-car crash with 31 to go, while a cut tire on Anthony Alfredo’s No. 5 Chevrolet Camaro stacked up the field and ultimately led to Jeffrey Earnhardt clipping the turn-three apron coming to five to go.

Earnhardt’s car course-corrected and shot up the track into Alfredo’s door, shoving Alfredo into the wall and collecting Caesar Bacarella, Clements, Josh Bilicki, and Shane van Gisbergen.

That accident led to the brief red flag and the eventual overtime finish.

Through all the chaos, Truex’s teammate Chandler Smith ended up second in a one-two finish for Joe Gibbs’ Xfinity Series program. The Talking Rock, Ga., native was the highest finishing series regular Friday.

Kligerman was scored third when all the smoke cleared, improving to 44 points above the 12th-place playoff cut line with four races left in the regular season, but rued Daytona as an “opportunity missed” after feeling like he had one of the cars to beat.

“I just feel like I’ve put myself in position time-after-time [to win], and this race team has helped me do that,” said Kligerman of Scott Borchetta’s Big Machine Racing organization. And in that moment … I went left, and A.J. tried to come with me and it just didn’t work.

“I hate it. AJ and I worked great together. We were the best two [cars] that weren’t Toyotas all day, I feel like,” Kligerman continued. “I just had a run that I felt like was a run I had to take to try and put myself on the bottom and in position to win this race. I felt like the bottom was going win it to [turn] four and I don’t know what else I could have done there.”

Herbst rallied from early damage sustained in a pit-road collision with his teammate, defending series champion Cole Custer, to finish fourth ahead of Ryan Sieg, who moved into the provisional playoff field on points with his fifth-place effort.

Owner-driver and longtime journeyman Jordan Anderson was an impressive sixth, followed by Justin Allgaier, who swept the first two stages Friday night.

Sheldon Creed, Leland Honeyman, and Kyle Weatherman closed the top 10.

The NASCAR Xfinity Series season continues at Darlington (S.C.) Raceway, where Cup Series star Denny Hamlin is the defending winner of the Labor Day weekend event at the 1.366-mile egg-shaped oval.

Broadcast coverage of the Sport Clips Haircuts/VFW Help A Hero 200 is slated for Saturday, Aug. 31 at 3:30 p.m. ET, live on USA, the Motor Racing Network, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, channel 90.