After rain halted the on-track action at Kansas Speedway, Noah Gragson was officially named the winner of the Kansas Lottery 300.
Gragson, who scored his second consecutive NASCAR Xfinity Series victory on Saturday, led 20 laps on the day.
“The No. 54 (Ty Gibbs) was really fast all day,” Gragson said. “The pit crew did a good job all day keeping us in contention. That restart (on lap 76) was the most important part of the race today. Yeah, it’s a rain victory, but we came off pit road third behind the No. 54 and No. 19 (Brandon Jones).
“They both took the top, and I chose the bottom, third row. I restarted inside the No. 19, and I could see the No. 54 pushing the No. 07 (Brett Moffitt, who along with Ryan Sieg and Austin Hill had stayed out on older tires). He (Moffitt) was spinning his tires pretty bad.
“I got to the lead on those guys, and that kind of was the game-changer on today’s race. I think we all knew that we were racing to halfway or a little after.”
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Though the race was stopped at lap 94, six laps before the halfway mark of the 200-lap event, it was made official due to the race reaching the end of the second stage.
The winning move for the driver of the No. 9 JR Motorsports Chevrolet, came on a restart with two laps to go before the end of stage two.
Gragson was able to work the high line out of turn two to clear teammate Justin Allgaier, before ultimately driving away from the field to the green and white checkered flag.
Behind Gragson was Allgaier, who hung on to second after contact with Ty Gibbs out of turn four.
After the incident, Gibbs gave his take on the incident.
“I feel like we were just got into a weird restart line, but when the three guys stayed out, I just picked the wrong one,” Gibbs said. “I thought it was the right one and it wasn’t. Then we went back racing and off of (turn) four I made contact with Justin (Allgaier). I felt like I hit the wall hard, and I didn’t, and I got mad then whipped it down and hit him in the door; and the stupid part is it hurt my car more than it hurt his.
“I feel like his car is okay, but they’re going to have to put a door on it when they get back to the shop and that’s just inexcusable for me, and I’m very disappointed in my actions and I apologize to them,” Gibbs continued. “I thought it was worse honestly than it was when I watched on TV it wasn’t. So, I apologize to Jason (Burdett, crew chief), Justin and Dale (Earnhardt Jr., car owner) and the whole group, the whole seven group, and I just can’t be doing that stuff. It was my fault, I just felt like I hit the wall harder than I did, and I came back down and hit him and I just can’t be doing that.”
Gibbs finished third, with teammate and polesitter Brandon Jones finishing fourth, while Cup Series playoff driver Ross Chastain rounded out the top-five.
For Gragson, it was his fifth victory of the season, a career-high for the fourth-year driver.