Noah Gragson Xfinity Series
Noah Gragson won his seventh race of the season. (HHP/Chris Owens)
NASCAR Xfinity Series

Noah Gragson Wins Fourth Straight NASCAR Xfinity Race

September 24, 2022

After cycling back to the lead following a lengthy green flag pit cycle, Noah Gragson led the final 12 laps and won Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth.

The JR Motorsports driver won over Austin Hill to become the first driver to win four consecutive Xfinity Series races since Sam Ard in 1983. Gragson’s wins came at Darlington Raceway, Kansas Speedway, Bristol Motor Speedway and Texas

Gragson led a race-high 85 of 200 laps to score his seventh win of the season to open the NASCAR Xfinity playoffs.

The win came in a race that saw misfortune plague almost every playoff driver, including Gragson, who had to bounce back from a second pit stop during a mid-race caution in order to secure lug nuts on his left-front wheel.

“We just got a badass … team, ” Gragson told NBC Sports. “The pit crew’s done awesome … Such a relief. We lost this race back in 2020 and just executed a great race. … We’re on fire as a team right now. …. I’m driving my ass off and having fun while we’re doing it.”

Hill earned his 11th top five of the season and his first back-to-back since July.

“We were faster than (Gragson), I don’t know if he was just kind of pacing there or not,” Hill told NBC Sports. “Just got too tight there at the end. I’m sure I could have done a better job coming to that green flag pit stop. … It’s nice to start the playoffs like this, start them off right. But at the same time we know if he had won, we wouldn’t have to worry about (Talladega) or the (Charlotte) Roval.”

Click here for the NASCAR Xfinity at Texas race results.

 

The top five was completed by Ty Gibbs, AJ Allmendinger and Riley Herbst.

Gibbs led only three laps. He had to start from the rear after his team made an unapproved adjustment just before the start of the race.

“Honestly, we were just a little tight coming through there,” Gibbs said. “We fired off really, really free and it set the tone for the rest. They adjusted for what I asked for, but I asked for a little too much so it’s my fault.

Filling out the top 10 were Josh Berry, Sheldon Creed, Sam May, Ryan Sieg and CJ McLaughlin. 

The top eight cars were the only ones to finish on the lead lap. 

For McLaughlin, the 10th-place result is his best finish in 26 career starts.

Playoff driver Brandon Jones started from his third pole in four races. But his race was thrown into disarray in Turn 1 on Lap 1. Contact with behind with Daniel Hemric sent Jones into a slide onto the track apron as the field raced by him. Jones recovered and rejoined the field around 20th.

Gragson took the lead due to Jones’ mishap. He’d keep it until John Hunter Nemechek passed him on Lap 12 entering Turn 1.

The race’s first caution, on Lap 19, was a result of a Jeffrey Earnhardt wreck. Earnhardt bounced off a JD Motorsports car exiting Turn 2, which sent his car sliding into the inside wall.

Nemechek retained the lead over Gragson on the Lap 25 restart. Not long after it, Sam Mayer slapped the wall exiting Turn 4 and dropped to 20th.

With nine laps left in Stage 1, McLaughlin caused the second caution when he spun exiting Turn 2.

On pit road Gragson was the first off, getting out ahead of Gibbs and Nemechek. Meanwhile, Hemric, Justin Allgaier, Allmendinger, Berry, Hill, Clements and Sieg all stayed out in bid to get stage points as the race resumed with three laps to go.

Hemric easily kept the lead on the restart. Allgaier made a charge on the last lap, but Hemric held on for the stage win. It was his first stage win since the season-opening race at Daytona International Speedway.

Gragson raced from 13th to fourth in three laps, finishing behind Hemric, Allgaier and and Hill.

Unfortunately for Gragson, he had to pit during the caution along with everyone else due to unsecured lug nuts on his left-front tire. While Nemechek restarted first and Gibbs second, Gragson was 18th.

Gibbs would take the lead on Lap 54, only for Nemechek to take it back on Lap 56. Gragson would race to eighth by Lap 55 and third place by Lap 72.

The stage would run caution free until 12 laps to go when David Starr hit the wall exiting Turn 2 and put down debris. During the caution, Jeremy Clements’ No. 51 Chevrolet stalled out and had to be pushed to pit road and eventually the garage with a DNF>

“I was just riding around under caution and (the car) just cut off,” Clements told NBC Sports, adding they did not know the cause. “This is out of the blue.”

During pit stops Gragson was first off ahead of Gibbs and Nemechek. Hemric assumed the lead when he stayed out of the pits.

Berry was penalized for an uncontrolled tire, sending him to the rear of the field.

On the restart with five laps to go, Allmendinger surged by Hemric to take the lead. Gragson would take second with three laps to go.

Allmendinger ran away to win the stage, his third of the season.

Following a caution for a one-car incident, a large multi-car wreck broke out on a restart with 90 laps to go in the race and started when Allmendinger got into the back bumper of Brandon Brown on the backstretch. It collected Allmendinger, Cassill, Brown, Sieg and Stefan Parsons.

Allmendinger, the regular-season champion, had significant damage, but was able to continue following repairs. Sieg, also a playoff driver, had to pit multiple times for repairs.

The ensuing restart brought even more chaos.

Exiting Turn 2, the front four cars – Nemechek, Allgaier, Gragson and Austin Hill  – were essentially four-wide when Nemechek, on the outside, got loose and sparked a chain reaction. The wreck that followed collected nine cars, including the playoff drivers of Allgaier, Hemric and Jones, who were all eliminated.

 

“I thought we were in a good position there on that restart, I was able to shove (Nemechek) out there and then I was kind of stuck in the middle,” Allgaier told NBC Sports. “(Nemechek) started to get loose, I tried to get left of him and then it was all over from there. … Just disappointing.”

Said Nemechek, “The resin up there was slick as well. … I thought were were going to have a shot to win the race … but didn’t work out.”

The carnage continued on the next restart, with a wreck involving Garrett Smithley, Myatt Snider, Kyle Weatherman at the entrance of Turn 3. That marked three consecutive restarts marred by wrecks.

The next restart, with 68 laps to go, as well as the rest of the race was accident free.