Race Winner: Aric Almirola of Joe Gibbs Racing (Toyota)
Stage 1 Winner: Aric Almirola of Joe Gibbs Racing (Toyota)
Stage 2 Winner: Sam Mayer of JR Motorsports (Chevrolet)
SHR Race Finish:
● Cole Custer (Started 3rd / Finished 2nd, Running, completed 200 of 200 laps)
● Riley Herbst (Started 16th / Finished 10th, Running, completed 200 of 200 laps)
SHR Points:
● Cole Custer (1st with 2,079 points)
● Riley Herbst (8th with 2,039 points, 40 out of first)
Playoff Standings (with two races to go before the Round of 8):
1. Cole Custer (2,079 points) +40 Points
2. Chandler Smith (2,074 points) +35 Points
3. Austin Hill (2,064 points) +25 Points
4. Sam Mayer (2,051 points) +13 Points
5. Sheldon Creed (2,048 points) +9 Points
6. Shane Van Gisbergen (2,046 points) +7 Points
7. Jesse Love (2,041 points) +3 Points
8. Riley Herbst (2,039 points) +1 Point
9. Justin Allgaier (2,038 points) -1 Point
10. AJ Allmendinger (2,026 points) -13 Points
11. Parker Kligerman (2,024 points) -15 Points
12. Sammy Smith (2,016 points) -23 Points
SHR Notes:
● Custer earned his 12th top-five of the season and his first top-10 in six career NASCAR Xfinity Series starts at Kansas.
● This was Custer’s second straight top-two finish. He won last Friday at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway.
● Custer’s second-place finish bettered his previous best finish at Kansas – 11th, earned in October 2019.
● Custer finished third in Stage 1 to earn eight bonus points and third in Stage 2 to earn eight more bonus points.
● Custer led four times for 48 laps increasing his laps led total at Kansas to 136.
● Herbst earned his 11th top-10 of the season and his second top-10 in six career NASCAR Xfinity Series starts at Kansas.
● Herbst ninth in Stage 1 to earn two bonus points.
Race Notes:
● Aric Almirola won the Kansas Lottery 300 to score his sixth career NASCAR Xfinity Series victory, his second of the season and his first at Kansas. His margin over second-place Cole Custer was .660 of a second.
● There were six caution periods for a total of 33 laps.
● Only 16 of the 38 drivers in the race finished on the lead lap.
● Custer is the championship leader after Kansas with a five-point advantage over second-place Chandler Smith.
Sound Bites:
“That killed us. Trying to pass Chandler (Smith) definitely burned our stuff up trying to get by him. It really made me mad when he put us in the fence on that restart. He is going to pay the consequences for that, and I’m going to race him how he races me. At the end of the day, I just can’t say enough about our No. 00 team and this car. I think we could’ve gone back-to-back really easily if things had fallen our way. We’ll move on to Talladega. I’m sure points wise we’re pretty good. We’ll keep chugging along.” –Cole Custer, driver of the No. 00 NXT on CW Ford Mustang Dark Horse
“It’s just frustrating because I feel out of everyone in the garage me and Austin (Hill) race each other really hard but really clean. We make it difficult on each other but we have fun doing it. We don’t lay fenders. But I feel like he slipped and got into my left rear and spun us out. That was a frustrating day. I don’t think we were a top three car but could have held our own in fifth. We were there coming to the second stage but lost all that track position and once you lose that it is really tough to get it back. We managed to finish 10th. Not what we wanted in the first race of the first round but we have two more races to go race hard and get this No. 98 Monster Energy Ford Mustang Dark Horse locked into the next round.” –Riley Herbst, driver of the No. 98 Monster Energy Ford Mustang Dark Horse
Next Up:
The next event on the NASCAR Xfinity Series schedule is the United Rentals 250 on Saturday, Oct. 5 at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway. The race begins at 4 p.m. EDT with live coverage provided by CW and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
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