Todays ToyotaCare 250 at Richmond Raceway started with Riley Herbst making his first Xfinity start from the pole in the #18 Joe Gibbs because of a rained out qualifying effort and Kyle Busch. It rained throughout the day and the weather continued to be a concern all night.
The Dash 4 Cash was again in play this week as Christopher Bell chased another $100,000 check. Competing with Bell this week was Tyler Reddick, Cole Custer, and Chase Briscoe.
It didn’t take long for Custer to find himself in the lead where he would stay for 18 laps before Justin Allgaier put his Jr. Motorsports Chevrolet out front. Soon the leaders would be navigating lapped traffic as Bell joined the battle. Bell would become the fourth different leader of the race on lap 38.
The first caution of the night would fly on lap 66 as Mason Diaz would find himself in trouble in turn 2. While most teams took this opportunity to service their cars Michael Annett stayed out front for the final laps of stage one, but dropped like a rock.
Allgaier took the green and white checkered for stage one, and lead the field back to the green for the start of stage two. He was able to maintain the lead until Jeremy Clements blew an engine bringing out the second caution of the night. Rain drops were felt amongst the crowd, but the race went back to green.
Allgaier stayed out with five other cars holding off a pack of competitors with fresh tires as the cars ran around the track three and four wide. Custer was the first with fresh tires to make it out front. In all of the chaos Bell got a nudge by Noah gragson getting into turn 3 and spun bringing out another caution shortly before the end of stage two.
NASCAR would manage to get the restart in with four to go, everyone knew this could be the end of the race. Custer pulled away to win stage two, and continued to lead the majority of stage three. David Starr spun on the front stretch to bring out a caution with 38 laps to go.
The restart was short lived as Allgaier spun his tires backing up the field and causing Gragson to get spun in turn 1. The next attempt was better as Austin Cindric took the lead before giving back to Custer with 18 laps to go.
Cole Custer hung on to win the race and $100,000.
Top five: Cole Custer, Austin Cindric, Justin Allgaier, Tyler Reddick, Ryan Seig.
The NASCAR Xfinity Series will be back on track April 27th at 1:00PM ET. at Talladega Superspeedway for the Sparks Energy 300.
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