Regan Smith was a man on a mission at Dover on Saturday. After a red flag on Lap 114, Smith quickly took the lead away from Elliott Sadler and led the remaining 80 laps to capture his second win in the last seven Xfinity Series races.
After starting in the eighth position, Smith remained mutual in his position throughout the first 100 laps. After the red flag, his car came alive and held off Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch to pick up his first-career victory at the Monster Mile.
“Not just Cup regulars, but you’ve got two Gibbs cars,” Smith said regarding holding off Hamlin and Busch in the final 80 laps. “Kyle Busch is the man here, and Denny has been good. Those cars have been so good everywhere all year long. I didn’t know if we could run with them, but I wanted to get back going to see if we could at least keep up with them.”
“We had been trying to come back from that flat tire all day. As the restart played out, we had to earn it and keep in front of them when they made that charge. I know how hard that my teams been working on our cars and the amount of effort that they’ve been putting into them every week. We feel like we’ve had four or five of these races, but just circumstances have maybe made us finish third or second. We’ve been pretty steady all year long so it’s a big deal for us.”
Currently, the No. 7 team sits third in the point standings, 36 points behind point’s leader Chris Buescher. Smith has just five races remaining to try and capture his first NASCAR championship.
Hamlin had the second best car during the long green flag run to the end. At times, Hamlin made it to the rear bumper of Smith and at one point even got side-by-side with him but was unable to take the lead. Soon after, Hamlin was battling with Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Busch and it slowed his pace down. The No. 20 was unable to regain the lost ground and had to come home with a second-place finish.
Busch dominated the opening 115 laps. He led 110 out of the possible 114 laps prior to the red flag for rain. After the race resumed, Busch restarted in third and could never find his stride and finished in a disappointing third-place. Once Smith got clean air on the rest of the field the race seemed to be over.
After winning last weekend in Kentucky, Ryan Blaney took home a top-five finish at Dover. Blaney was a step or two off of running up front and contending for a victory.
“We were in that third to fourth range all day,” Blaney said. “I didn’t think we had anything for the No. 54 or No. 20, but that No. 7 woke up after the rain delay. Having no practice made it hard to unload and run in the top three. We needed more take off speed.”
Kyle Larson rounded out the top five. This is the 23-year-old’s third top-five of 2015 after having tremendous speed in 2015. The No. 42 has struggled on both the Cup and Xfinity side this season. However, Larson will look to win his first race of the season next weekend at Charlotte, a place that he was victorious last season.
The biggest incident of the day came on Lap 24 when Ross Chastain and Dakota Armstrong made contact and wrecked in Turn 3. As Ty Dillon went into Turn 3 to check up his right front tire blew and he pounded the outside wall. This put Dillon behind the wall 85 laps down, he finished 28th.
“I heard a pop and that’s about it,” Dillon said. “I saw the caution come out and all of a sudden I felt a pop. I hate that this has to happen this late in the season, but we’re not going to give up on the championship.”
Dillon came into the race at Dover just 19 points behind Buescher. Post-Dover, Dillon is now 39 points behind the point leader and fell to fourth in the standings.
Chase Elliott gained one point on Buescher as he finished in seventh. Elliott has just four races remaining to recapture the points lead and win his second consecutive championship.
Buescher was the spring winner in Dover and he came home with an eighth-place finish on Saturday. Buescher is in command of the championship lead and will really have to slip in the remaining five races in order to lose the championship this season.
The next Xfinity Series race will be held next Friday night in Charlotte. Austin Dillon dominated in NASCAR’s back yard in May.
- Josh Wise Adapting to The Motorsports Group - August 14, 2016
- Carl Edwards has Fully Transitioned into Joe Gibbs Racing - August 5, 2016
- Chris Buescher Steals a Victory in Soggy Pocono Event - August 1, 2016