Riley Herbst delivered a gritty eighth-place finish in the Contender Boats 300 NASCAR Xfinity Series race Saturday at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Adversity struck Herbst early in the 200-lap race when he was caught up in a chain-reaction accident on just the third tour around the 1.5-mile oval. The No. 8 car of Josh Berry got loose off the exit of turn two, forcing the No. 27 machine of Jeb Burton up into the path of J.J. Yeley’s No. 66 ride. Yeley drifted high and collected Herbst, pancaking Herbst’s No. 98 Monster Energy Ford Mustang against the wall. Two trips to pit road were necessary to repair the damage, jettisoning Herbst to the tail end of the 38-car field – a bitter pill to swallow after starting 15th. Herbst remain focused. He buckled down and muscled his ill-handling racecar back to 15th by the end of the first stage. Continual work to further repair the damage on the ensuing pit stops meant that Herbst was always having to regain lost positions, as his extended time on pit road negated his forward progress on the racetrack. Herbst battled back each time, finishing 15th in the second stage and then an impressive eighth when the checkered flag dropped.
Riley Herbst, driver of the No. 98 Monster Energy Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing:
“It sucked getting wrecked there on lap three, but everyone on this Monster Energy team did a good job to get it repaired. We came away with a top-10, which is good, but obviously we wanted more. It was frustrating getting through all the lapped traffic, but we just kept digging and made the most of it there at the end.”
Notes:
● Herbst’s eighth-place result bettered his previous best finish at Homestead – ninth, earned in the second race of the 2020 doubleheader.
● This was Herbst’s 18th top-10 of the season and it set a new career high for the 23-year-old racer from Las Vegas. His previous best of 17 top-10s in a single season came during his rookie campaign in 2020.
● This was Herbst’s third top-10 in four career NASCAR Xfinity Series starts at Homestead. His lone finish outside the top-10 was an 11th-place drive last year.
● Noah Gragson won the Contender Boats 300 to score his 13th career Xfinity Series victory, his series-leading eighth of the season and his first at Homestead. His margin over second-place Ty Gibbs was .550 of a second.
● There were four caution periods for a total of 24 laps.
● Only 14 of the 38 drivers in the race finished on the lead lap.
Next Up:
The next event on the NASCAR Xfinity Series schedule is the Martinsville 250 on Saturday, Oct. 29 at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway. It will be the penultimate race of the seven-race playoffs and the final race in the Round of 8. The Martinsville 250 starts at 3 p.m. EDT with live coverage provided by NBC and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
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