In what was likely his last race as a substitute driver for Dale Earnhardt Jr., Regan Smith brought the No. 88 Chevrolet home in seventh. Smith was battling Paul Menard for the third spot before Sam Hornish Jr. clobbered the Turn 1 wall on Lap 236 to cause the 14th and final caution.
On the subsequent restart on Lap 240, Smith was shuffled back but held on for his fourth top 10 of the season.
“The track conditions were difficult,” Smith said. “I think a lot of it was just overdone by guys maybe not being smart on restarts, from what I saw. Everybody was fighting for the bottom. You didn’t want to lose positions on the top side, but then the top side would come in as runs would go on, so that was kind of weird.
“All the guys on the National Guard/Diet Mountain Dew Chevy did a hell of a job these past two weeks. We had arguably a better car last week (before an engine failure), had we had a chance to run the whole race. It’s been nice to be able to step in and have them treat me like their normal driver.”
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