DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – An eventful road course race last week and a short track challenge this week certainly has the NASCAR Xfinity Series drivers up on the wheel. Austin Hill continues to lead the Xfinity Series championship standings, but a DNF for the points leader last week in Austin, means that second place Riley Herbst now trails the season’s three-race winner by only 15 points heading into Saturday’s ToyotaCare 250 at Richmond (Va.) Raceway (1 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Herbst, the driver of the No. 98 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford has proven to be quite adept at the .75-mile Richmond oval with top-10 finishes in four of his five starts and fifth place finishes in both races last year. He is still racing for his first career win, however, there is some positive history for that at Richmond. Kyle Busch and Robby Gordon are the last drivers to score their first Xfinity Series victory at Richmond, splitting the 2004 races.
Ty Gibbs – the 2022 NASCAR Xfinity Series champion – won last year’s race by a slight .116-second. Gibbs (114 laps) and runner-up John Hunter Nemechek (135 laps) combined to lead all but one lap of the race.
JR Motorsports’ Justin Allgaier and Herbst’s SHR teammate Cole Custer are the only former winners entered this weekend. Allgaier, who has finished inside the top-10 in half of his 22 Richmond starts, swept both races in 2020 and Custer scored his victory there in 2019. They along with Herbst and Nemechek should be easy favorites this weekend.
Nemechek, driver of the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota, is ranked third in points, 29 points behind Hill and is one of only three fulltime drivers (also JGR’s Sammy Smith) to have earned a trophy already.
Smith, driver of the No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota, was the highest finishing Xfinity Series regular last week at COTA with a fourth-place finish – just ahead of Allgaier, Daniel Hemric and Sam Mayer.
Qualifying has proven to be especially important at Richmond with 16 winners from pole position – the most of any single starting spot. And indeed, that’s where Gibbs started last April en route to his victory.
In addition to the tight battle atop the points position, Saturday’s race marks the first of the popular Dash 4 Cash incentive program for the Xfinity Series. The top four fulltime series drivers from last week’s race in Austin – Allgaier, his JR Motorsports teammate Mayer, Kaulig Racing’s Hemric and JGR rookie Sammy Smith making his Richmond debut – will be eligible for the Dash 4 Cash $100,000 bonus.
The highest finishing driver among those four will get the big $100,000 check from Xfinity and the four highest fulltime finishers at Richmond will be eligible for another $100,000 in the next race, April 11 at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway.
Mayer earned the $100,000 bonus last year at Richmond with a third-place finish. Allgaier has four Dash 4 Cash bonus wins in his career too.
“After last week’s race, I feel more than confident in my team that we are going to have a great finish this week at Richmond and contend for that $100,000 prize in the Dash 4 Cash,” Mayer said. “We won it last year so I am hopeful we can swoop in and take the win and race for it again in Martinsville.
“I’m happy to have (crew chief) Mardy (Lindley) back calling the shots and really excited to get back to short-track racing.”
The Xfinity Series will have practice Saturday morning at 8:05 a.m. ET, followed by qualifying at 8:35 a.m. ET and the race at 1 p.m. that afternoon.
Source: Holly Cain/NASCAR Wire Service
