KANSAS City, Kan. — Part-time NASCAR Xfinity Series driver Aric Almirola ran down playoff leader Cole Custer in the closing laps of Saturday’s Kansas Lottery 300 at Kansas Speedway and pulled away for his second victory of the season in the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota.
In a round of 12 playoff opener that ended with several unhappy drivers and a handful of post-race conversations between playoff contenders, Almirola picked up his first win at the 1.5-mile track and the sixth of his career.
Almirola beat Custer to the finish line by 0.660 seconds, with Chandler Smith trailing in third after raising Custer’s ire by squeezing the No. 00 Ford into the outside wall as Custer chased Smith for the lead — before Almirola made his late-race run.
To seal the win, Almirola had to overcome a brush with the outside wall on lap 124 and a resulting cut tire that forced him to the pits. An opportune caution that interrupted a cycle of green flag stops on lap 145 was all Almirola needed to get back on equal footing with the other contenders.
Almirola is the fourth driver to win two races this season in the No. 20 JGR Toyota, joining Christopher Bell, John Hunter Nemechek and Ryan Truex.
“I’m wore out,” said Almirola, who passed Custer for the lead on lap 197 of 200. “That was a hard day at the office for a guy that’s been sitting on the couch. I just pushed too hard there when we had the issue on pit road (a slow stop), and I got in the fence and cut the right-rear tire down.
“I knew I had to put my head down and go to work after that. We got lucky to get the caution when we did, and we were out of tires, so the fact that it went green there to the end (for the final 49 laps) … that’s where we were strong. We were really strong on the long runs.”
After the race, Custer had a brief conversation with Smith and vowed revenge.
“Everybody wants to try and talk afterwards,” Custer said. “At the end of the day, he put me in the fence, and he’s going to pay for it.”
Smith countered that he didn’t believe Custer ever had position to his outside.
“We’re racing for the win and five extra playoff points,” said Smith, who led 114 laps. “You’ve got a very, very valid statement, I understand, but I also wouldn’t change what I did, because I was giving myself the best shot to win.”
Non-playoff driver Connor Zilisch finished fourth, followed by Sheldon Creed, who improved his position in the playoff standings by four spots with his seventh top-five in the last nine races.
Pole winner Brandon Jones, who didn’t make the postseason, was fifth, followed by playoff drivers Austin Hill, Shane van Gisbergen, Jesse Love and Riley Herbst.
In another post-race conversation, Hill apologized to Herbst for lap 90 contact that sent Herbst’s Ford spinning through the infield grass at the end of the second stage. In yet another tete-a-tete between playoff drivers, Sammy Smith took A.J. Allmendinger to task for early contact that damaged Smith’s Chevrolet.
Smith finished 22nd and heads to next Saturday’s playoff race at Talladega 12th in the standings, 23 points below the cut line for the round of 8.
Allmendinger (17th Saturday) and Parker Kligerman (12th) are 10th and 11th in the playoff standings, 13 and 15 points below the cutoff, respectively.
The shockingly bad luck haunting top-seeded Justin Allgaier continued in force on Saturday. Racing in close quarters with Creed after a restart on lap 70, Allgaier’s No. 7 Chevrolet broke loose, slid across traffic and nosed into the inside wall on the backstretch.
After frantic repairs, Allgaier attempted to return to the race, but a cut left-front tire sent him into the outside wall and out of action in 36th place.
Allgaier’s exit came eight days after a series of accidents knocked him out of the Food City 300 at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway and cost him the regular-season championship.
“I don’t know if I’ve had a stretch of races that have been like these last three or four weeks,” said Allgaier. “We’re not out of it by any stretch. Obviously, that’s why you do all the work to get all the bonus points you can.
“We’ve got a long road the next two weeks. I’ve got the team that can do it. We’ve just got to go have some luck on our side.”
Allgaier fell from first to ninth in the standings and trails Herbst by one point in the battle for the final berth in the round of 8.
Custer now leads the series by five points over Chandler Smith, with Hill 15 points back. Fourth-place Sam Mayer, who ran 13th at Kansas, is 28 points behind Custer and three points ahead of Creed in fifth.
Van Gisbergen and Love are sixth and seventh in the playoff standings, respectively eight and three points above the cutline for the next round.