Familiar names and the season’s most frequent Victory Lane visitors have earned the marquee billing for Saturday’s Ford EcoBoost 300 at Homestead-Miami Speedway (3:30 p. m. ET on NBCSN, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Regular-season champion and eight-race winner Christopher Bell is attempting to win his first Xfinity Series championship before moving into the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series ranks next year. The driver of the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota has turned in a season for the ages. Now he wants to cap it with a championship Saturday afternoon.
For much of the year, the Xfinity Series buzz has centered on the outstanding output of its three championship-leading drivers, Bell, Cole Custer and reigning series champion Tyler Reddick. The three have won 20 of the 32 races to date led by Bell’s eight wins, Custer’s seven and Reddick’s five. The fourth member of this Championship 4 is veteran Justin Allgaier, who earned his championship shot with his first victory of the season, last Saturday at Phoenix’s ISM Raceway.
Should Bell win on Saturday he would become only the fourth driver in history to win both NASCAR’s Gander Outdoors Truck Series and Xfinity Series championships. He’s certainly shown the way topping the series in victories for the second consecutive year. The 24-year old Oklahoman must find a way to turn his Homestead fortune around. He finished 11th last year, last of the four championship eligible drivers. His help on the pit box, crew chief Jason Ratliff, is certainly a leader to help culminate the year with a trophy. He led Kyle Busch to the 2009 Xfinity Series title. Should Bell win, it would be Joe Gibbs Racing’s record sixth owner’s championship.
Cole Custer, driver of the No. 00 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford shows up at Homestead feeling there is some business to finish. Custer won his first Xfinity Series race at the South Florida track in 2017 leading a dominating 182 of the 200 laps. And he came so close last year in his first title shot, ultimately finishing runner-up to Reddick after winning the pole position and leading a race-best 95 laps.
The regular-season champion and 2018 champ Reddick certainly has established himself a statistical favorite for the championship hardware. The driver of the No. 2 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet led the series in top-fives (23) and top-10s (26). Should he answer his win last year, Reddick would become only the seventh drivers in Xfinity Series history to win back-to-back titles. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. was the last to do so in 2011-12. He would also be the first to do so with two different teams. Last year he won the championship for JR Motorsports. Although Reddick has not won a race in this year’s Playoffs, he was runner-up at Kansas and his 6.5 average finish on the season is best in the series.
The seasoned and well-liked veteran Allgaier returns to the championship mix after missing out on the Championship 4 last year. The previous two years he finished third in the title run. A championship for Allgaier would give his JR Motorsports team its third consecutive title – matching William Byron (2017) and Reddick (2018). The driver of the No. 7 JRM Chevrolet has a pair of top-10 finishes in the last three Homestead races with a career-best showing of sixth in 2016,
Source: Holly Cain | NASCAR Wire Service
