NXS: John Hunter Nemechek Wins Kansas Lottery 300

John Hunter Nemechek took a visit to victory lane at Kansas Speedway on Saturday. Nemechek, piloting the No. 42 Chevrolet for Chip Ganassi Racing, led the field for 64 of the 200 laps to earn his first career NASCAR XFINITY Series win.

 

The 300-mile Kansas Lottery 300 was dominated by second-place finisher Daniel Hemric. Hemric, who won the pole for the race and led 128 circuits, sat 5.200 seconds behind the race winner.

 

Hemric finished first in stage one and sat second in stage two behind eventual race winner John Hunter Nemechek. Hemric, in 30 races this season, has 14 top five and 20 top 10 finishes.

 

With the win on Saturday, through 15 starts in 2018, Nemechek has earned four top five and eight top 10 finishes.

 

Elliott Sadler rounded out the top three finishers in the Kansas Lottery 300 on Saturday. Sadler, driving the No. 1 Chevrolet for JR Motorsports, started 11th on the leaderboard and lead the field for two laps. The Virginia native ended stage one sitting fifth and stage two sitting fourth.

 

Shane Lee and Tyler Reddick rounded out the top five.

 

Matt Tifft, Ryan Reed, Ty Majeski, Ryan Sieg and Jeremy Clements rounded out the top 10.

 

Several potential winners were caught up in struggles early on. On the backstretch after going green, nine cars were involved in an incident that took out Justin Allgaier and Austin Cindric. Other notables involved were Cole Custer, Ryan Truex, Christopher Bell and Chase Briscoe. Allgaier will leave with a 38th-place finish while Cindric finished 39th.

 

Eleven laps later a yellow came out for the No. 19 Toyota of Brandon Jones on the backstretch. Jones went on to finish 36th and 188 laps down.  

 

On lap 89, a lap before the end of stage two, a caution came out for three cars in turn four that involved a trio of cars. One of those drivers included Ryan Preece. The driver of the No. 18 Toyota finished the afternoon in 21st.

 

The next race for the NASCAR XFINITY Series will be in two weeks at Texas Motor Speedway. Coverage of the event will air live on NBC and MRN radio.

Brett Winningham
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