FORT WORTH, Texas —Tyler Reddick spoiled Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series party at Texas Motor Speedway, giving Big Machine Racing its first series victory.
Reddick, who started outside the front row, led 31 laps, including the final 21 circuits of the 1.5-mile track as he pulled away from fellow NASCAR Cup Series regular William Byron to win the SRS Distribution 250.
“Nobody at RCR was really happy with where the cars were at,” said Reddick, who made his second start for the Scott Borchetta-owned team that has a strategic reliance with Richard Childress Racing. “I wanted to help and try and make these cars get better and try and figure out what we needed to do to get back up front. Well, we figured it out pretty quick I guess. Hats off to everyone at RCR, ECR power under this hood has always been outstanding.
“Great day, really happy to get this team their first win, what a day.”
Sam Mayer equaled his best-career finish in the Xfinity Series (Richmond), as he drove to a strong third-place finish in the No. 1 JR Motorsports Chevrolet.
“Man, it was pretty cool, that consistency that we’ve found, and this team’s working really hard together, even though we don’t have Taylor (Moyer) on the box,” Mayer said.” Still working really hard at the shop and here at the race track getting everyone else ready. This 1 team is really good, this Accelerate Chevy Camaro was really fast today. We were a little bit short. I was really thirsty for it, I was searching around all day for it. We were really fast, I held off the 7 (Allgaier), I think that’s a first for me, so baby steps I guess.”
Justin Allgaier finished fourth for JR Motorsports and Richard Childress Racing driver Austin Hill was fifth to complete a sweep of the top five for Chevrolet drivers.
Trouble For Contenders
When the green flag waved on the 38-car field, polesitter Noah Gragson was the driver to beat early on. Gragson led 33 laps in the Lone Star state, which included a stage-one victory.
However, the No. 9 JR Motorsports driver ran into trouble twice within a 10-lap span. He was caught up in a multi-car wreck on a lap-88 restart when Josh Berry got loose while leading and collected Allgaier, Gragson and Ty Gibbs.
Gragson had a left-rear tire go flat on lap 98 and he backed his Chevrolet into the wall, relegating him to a 36th-place finish.
Allgaier then blew a left-rear tire with 49 laps to go, but battled back to finish fourth in his JR Motorsports No. 7.
Gibbs battled back from the crash to finish 12th.
“We finished 12th so not bad, but we got wrecked after the caution came out and got wrecked again,” Gibbs said. “We never really got to show what we had it felt like. I felt like we were fast. Just with the traffic here. We made it to 17th really quick, but then everyone was all stretched out and this track is just tough because you’re riding around and hoping for another caution to get back together. Never really got back to where we needed to be or where we should have been. Just a chaotic event and a wreckfest.”
Notable Finishes
Xfinity Series point leader A.J. Allmendinger has finished in the top 10 in all 12 races this season after coming home ninth aboard the Kaulig Racing Chevrolet on Saturday.
Ryan Truex finished sixth and was the highest finishing Toyota driver in his second of the season in a limited schedule aboard the No. 18 Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing.
“I felt like stage two we really hit our stride and we were really fast,” Truex said. “I feel like us and the 7 (Justin Allgaier) were the two strongest cars. I don’t know what happened that last stage, I don’t know if it was the set of tires or what, but we just gave up track position and never got it back. Sixth isn’t bad, but probably should have been top-two. It’s just tough to pass here and dirty air is really hard. The crew did really good. I really needed a green flag run and unfortunately everybody kept wrecking so we never really had those. I’ll take it, solid day.”
Riley Herbst was the only Ford driver to finish in the top 10, coming home eighth.