After a long and eventful Saturday, Aric Almirola took home the win at the Sparks Energy 300 at Talladega Superspeedway. It is his third career XFINITY Series victory and second at a restrictor plate track.
He was followed by Elliott Sadler, Joey Logano, Ben Kennedy, and Erik Jones.
CATANZARETI: Almirola Continues Plate Racing Success
Almirola also won stage 1, while Justin Allgaier won stage 2. Allgaier led 24 laps, the most of anyone, before falling back through the pack in the frantic final few laps. He would finish the race in eighth place.
Several incidents plagued the event, including five cautions and two red flags. As usual, the Big Ones were on full display at Talladega.
The first stoppage was caused by contact between Brennan Poole, Matt Tifft, and Daniel Suarez near the end of stage 1. The crash involved nine cars, eliminating contenders such as Daniel Hemric, Brandon Jones, and Spencer Gallagher.
The second red flag was caused by a wreck kicked off by Daytona winner Ryan Reed and Almirola. Reed, Brendan Gaughan, and pole winner Blake Koch were among the eight drivers involved.
A caution was thrown for debris with 16 laps to go, setting up a shootout to the finish.
Almirola was able to make his way through the pack on the restart. Separate incidents including Darrell Wallace Jr. and Ryan Sieg occurred on the final lap but NASCAR kept the race green to the end.
The event saw 28 lead changes among 14 drivers. That’s the most in the XFINITY Series since the 2013 Daytona July race, which saw 31 lead changes.
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I didn’t watch much of the race, but I did see the start, a couple of restarts, and the end. I noticed that the pace car was a Ford Mustang. On the two restarts I saw, when the pace car pulled off, the FOX crew just said, ” The lights are off on the pace car” and “the pace car pulls off”. I know if it had of been a Toyota, the announcing would have been different. It would have been, “The lights are off on the Toyota Camry POS pace car” or “The Toyota Camry POS pace car pulls off”. Did they ever once acknowledge what brand the pace car was yesterday?