The finish of the second XFINITY series race of the season at Daytona on Saturday night ended like the first Cup race at the track earlier this season, with a photo finish.
Instead of being a finish that would be remembered for years to come, however, it was instead a finish that will forever be mired in controversy.
Aric Almirola won for the second time in his XFINITY series career in an incredibly close finish with Justin Allgaier in second. On the final lap of the race, which was extended by three laps due to a green-white-checkered attempt, multiple cars wrecked on the backstretch. NASCAR did not call the caution until the leaders were between turn four and the tri-oval, or approximately 10 seconds later.
It led to many going on Twitter to complain about the call, including one driver in the field:
Got the muppets up there officiating tonight! Never know how to react under pressure… Whatta joke
— Bubba Wallace (@BubbaWallace) July 2, 2016
The accident involved pole-sitter David Ragan and Darrell Wallace Jr. among others. It was the end of a caution filled night, with eight cautions for 33 laps.
On lap 16, a huge 14-car wreck took out many top contenders, including Austin Dillon, Brandon Jones, and Justin Marks. Points leader Daniel Suarez also ran into some trouble on lap 50, going hard into the wall after earlier being involved with the lap 16 wreck.
It’s the second win for Fred Biagi as an owner in his over 15 year career as an owner in the XFINITY series. The single car, part time team has ran a mix of young XFINITY series drivers and lower tier Ford Cup drivers the last few years, with Almirola making all eight of the team’s starts this season. It’s also the first win for Ford in the series since Texas in November of last season.

It was a bit of redemption for Almirola. His first XFINITY series win came in 2007 when he started a race at Milwaukee when Denny Hamlin, the scheduled driver for the car, was late getting to the track due to his Cup commitments. Almirola turned the car over to Hamlin after his arrival to the track and could only watch Hamlin win from the sidelines. Almirola didn’t celebrate or even own the trophy for this win. But the long wait for retribution was worth it for the Florida born driver.
Ryan Sieg matched his career best finish in the XFINITY series, ending the night third. It was a good recovery for Sieg after getting in a fight with Ryan Reed last month at Pocono. Sieg, who owns his small two team operation, now sits 11th in points. He is 16 points ahead of the Chase cut-off.
Joey Logano finished fourth after dominating most of the night, leading 46 laps. Brendan Gaughan ended the night fifth.
After a season and a half, Reed has finally gotten a top 10. Reed’s finish in sixth was his only top ten since winning the season opening Daytona race last season. The drought lasted 75 races and nearly 500 days. In 87 starts, Reed only has four top 10 finishes.
Former series champion Jeff Green had his best finish in 11 years in seventh and Spencer Gallagher came home eighth. Chase Elliott finished ninth and Erik Jones rounded out the top 10.
Suarez continues to lead the points after tonight, six ahead of Elliott Sadler, who ended the night 18th.
All drivers were released from the infield medical center including Sieg, who was suffering from dehydration after the race.
Unofficial results can be found here. Due to how close the race was for many postions on track, there is a chance the finishing order may be changed before the official results are released Monday, although changing the winner at this point is very doubtful. Frontstretch.com will report on any changes if they come.
Michael has watched NASCAR for 20 years and regularly covered the sport from 2013-2021, and also formerly covered the SRX series from 2021-2023. He now covers the FIA Formula 1 World Championship, the NASCAR Xfinity Series, and road course events in the NASCAR Cup Series.
Interesting a blocking move by Ragan…and we hear the words again in his post race no apology interview “did what needed to be done”..now if it was Ford driver…EWWWWWW, light up the torches. Ragan seemed to have been too busy with his camera time hustling nicely for the next opportunity to wreck a Gibbs car. Hey, that is racing and I don’t care. But I do care about the hypocritical stance and wording in the media when one driver does it. They get the “they caused” blah, blah, blah”. Then other drivers who CAUSED the pileup “were involved in an accident”, with no direct verbiage associating them as the direct and only cause or any arrow pointed at their direction. LOL!!!!!! Carry on, business as usual.
Listening to some of the talking heads it’s comforting to know that NA$CAR makes all their decisions based on driver safety.
Hearing Almirola basically saying he told the people at Saint Gibbs to shove the trophy from Milwaukee up their hind end made me laugh. Way to go, Aric! Looked good on them for the way they treated you!