It was wild and chaotic first stage with leaders swapping positions several times a lap while cutting off runs within inches the front bumper of the car behind them so it would be no surprise as the laps wound down and within sight of the stage flag that Mayer and AJ Allmendinger would tangle destroying both the cars.
Allmendinger currently in a hot battle with Austin Cindric for the Xfinity Series championship would see his day end on lap 24 to finish the day in 39th as Cindric would finish stage one in 5th.
But it would be the Joe Gibbs racing machines that were the class of the field early on with Brandon Jones, Harrison Burton and John Hunter Nemechek taking over the No. 54 this weekend swapping the lead.
By the time the caution flew for the Mayer and Allmendinger incident it would be Nemechek to take home the stage one win. The incident would also require a red flag to make repairs to the SAFER wall in turn three.
Meanwhile another playoff driver Justin Haley who has a pre-race inspection issue that sent him to the rear as well as a pass through on pit road would get the free pass and rejoin the rear of the field at the start of stage two.
As the laps wound down in stage two and Riley Herbst defending against a three wide crop of cars staring him down put on a master class as blocking until the final moments of the stage when an unknown Blaine Perkins with help from teammate Brett Moffitt took to the low side to get past Herbst allowing Perkins to take home the stage win in just his seventh Xfinity Series start.
With just a couple dozen laps remaining and action picking up Jeb Burton got into Brett Moffitt turning him down the track into race leader and playoff driver Noah Gragson who went straight up the track into the wall before getting slammed into by Myatt Snider causing the second red flag of the day to come out for cleanup.
With night falling and darkness creeping in racing resumed once again following a near 21-minute red flag to clean up. This wouldn’t last long when chaos once again struck off turn four with Moffitt, Nemechek, Herbst, H. Burton and more wrecking.
By the time it was all cleaned up NASCAR was asking drivers and officials their opinion if they could go back to green or not all the while trying to figure out who was the leader at the time of caution.
Following several laps under caution NASCAR officially scored Brandon Brown the leader and a lap later called the race due to darkness handing a small team out of Virginia their first NASCAR Xfinity Series victory.
The series now moves onto Charlotte ROVAL next Saturday at 3 p.m. ET on NBCSN.
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