NASCAR on TV this week

Aric Almirola Stumps Playoff Drivers at Kansas, Wins 2nd Xfinity Race

Aric Almirola made a late race pass on Cole Custer with three laps to go and held on to win of the Kansas Lottery 300 at Kansas Speedway Saturday (Sept. 28). Almirola captured his second win of the 2024 NASCAR Xfinity Series season, recovering from hitting the wall during the race that forced him down pit road early.

Almirola won his sixth career Xfinity race and collected the eighth win for Joe Gibbs Racing’s No. 20 Toyota Supra this season, locking the team into the next round of the owner’s championship. Almirola led just 16 laps.

“I was able to get by everybody on the long run, and I just pushed too hard there when we had the issue on pit road,” Almirola said. “I got in the fence and cut the right rear tire down. I knew I had to put my head down and go to work after that. We got lucky to get the caution when we did, and then, we were out of tires. We were strong on the long run. It just worked out.”

Custer led 48 laps with his No. 00 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford coming alive at the end of the race. Despite getting by JGR driver Chandler Smith for the lead late, Almirola followed him through after catching the two playoff drivers while they battled. Smith would finish third with most laps led today, leading 113.

The two battled hard at the start of the final 49-lap green flag run, which led to frustration from Custer and a brief conversation between the two post-race.

“I was to his outside and he put me in the fence,” Custer said. “I understand it’s hard racing, but I don’t race like that. So, I don’t expect to be raced like that. Now that he raced me like that, I’m going to race him like that.”

“I understand his frustration,” Smith said. “Last week, I was frustrated about some things at Bristol. I completely get it. I understand his point of view. I definitely didn’t put him in the fence. I was watching my mirror the whole time. I could feel the air on the right rear quarter panel, and every time I felt it, I checked to see if he was there, and he was extremely close every time, pretty much on my bumper, but he never got completely there. If he did, I’ll shoot out to him, apologize, tell him thank you for not right rear hooking me.”

Connor Zilisch, in his second career start, finished where he started the race in fourth, and Sheldon Creed was the third of three JGR Toyotas in the top five, finishing fifth.

Brandon Jones, Austin Hill, Shane van Gisbergen, Jesse Love and Riley Herbst rounded out the top 10.

Smith grabbed the lead early from the polesitter Jones, and a pair of JRM cars had early troubles. Zilisch made a couple of early saves while Sammy Smith made contact with the turn 4 wall after getting loose due to pressure from AJ Allmendinger on lap 4. The contact slowed his car down with damage and ultimately caused the No. 8 Chevrolet to spin by itself for the first caution of the day.

At the end of stage one, Almirola, who passed his JGR teammate Smith during the stage, won the opening stage, and another JGR driver in Taylor Gray had his engine blow up.

During the stage one caution, Allmendinger was dinged with an uncontrolled tire penalty on his pit stop, sending him to the rear, and Jones, who was running top five at the end of the stage, had to come in to tighten up some lug nuts.

After a caution for Brad Perez losing power, Justin Allgaier spun out of turn 2 on a restart running behind Creed, sending his No. 7 Chevrolet to the inside wall on the backstretch nose-first.

Allgaier tried to continue, but he suffered a flat tire on the restart, sending him into the turn 3 wall with no caution. Allgaier would pull behind the wall and finish 36th.

“[It’s been] just a frustrating couple of weeks,” Allgaier said. “I don’t know if I’ve had a stretch like this in my career. Hats off to everybody on the [No.] 7 team. They don’t deserve to be out of the race this early, and it’s super frustrating. We’ll get it figured out and go next week to Talladega and hopefully have a good weekend.”

Mayer took the lead away from Almirola and held him off in the closing laps of stage two to take the stage win and bonus playoff point.

Coming to the stage finish, Herbst in sixth was spun by Hill battling for sixth with Creed. Herbst showed his displeasure to the crew of the No. 21 Chevrolet, and Hill apologized over the radio.

With the No. 1 pit stall, Smith took the lead once more as Almirola’s pit crew had a problem with the air gun that forced Almirola to come back down pit road.

Two Toyotas of Almirola and Corey Heim got into the wall and had to make an early pit stop, altering their pit strategies.

As most teams made their final stops, Parker Retzlaff had an uncontrolled tire during his pit stop that wandered to the grass at the end of pit road, brining out the caution while the leader Custer was pitting.

Smith’s short run speed was too much for Custer to keep the lead as Smith went back to the lead after squeezing the No. 00 Ford out of turn 4 with 45 laps to go.

As the run continued, Custer reeled Smith back in as Almirola in third began to close in behind them, and with 10 to go, Custer was able to make the pass after many laps of driving behind the No. 81 Toyota. Almirola also made the pass on his JGR teammate.

With Almirola pressuring behind Custer, He got passed the No. 00 on the bottom of the track with three laps to go to gain the No. 20 team another win on the season.

Xfinity Kansas 2 Results

Race two of the Round of 12 for the Xfinity Series at Talladega Superspeedway will begin on Saturday, Oct 5 at 4 p.m. ET with broadcasting provided by The CW.

Wyatt Watson has followed NASCAR closely since 2007. He joined Frontstretchas a journalist in February 2023 after serving in the United States Navy for five years as an Electronic Technician Navigation working on submarines. Wyatt writes breaking NASCAR news and contributes to columns such as Friday Faceoff and 2-Headed Monster. Wyatt also contributes to Frontstretch's social media and serves as an at-track reporter, collecting exclusive content for Frontstretch.

Wyatt Watson can be found on Twitter @WyattGametime