Ryan Truex soared to victory in Saturday afternoon’s NASCAR Xfinity Series race, bypassing rookie Carson Kvapil on a double-overtime restart to prevail at Dover Motor Speedway.
Truex led only the final two of the 208 laps in the BetRivers 200, keeping his No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota out front at the checkered flag. Truex’s first win of the season was his second straight at the one-mile Delaware track and the second of his Xfinity Series career.
“That was not as easy at last year. Halfway through the race, I felt like crap. I’m running 10th or whatever — after dominating last year — kind of felt embarrassed, like I wasn’t doing my job enough. The last pit stop, I totally butchered it, and slid through the box. We just had really good restarts there at the end. I picked the right lanes,” Truex said.
Kvapil placed second in just his second Xfinity Series start in the No. 88 JR Motorsports Chevrolet. Sam Mayer, his JRM teammate, was third, with Sheldon Creed and Cole Custer completing the top five.
Rain briefly halted the event with 167 laps complete.
At that point, stage winners Cole Custer and Justin Allgaier ranked 1-2, but both were forced to pit before the race resumed and fell back in the order. Custer led 95 laps and rallied for a top-five finish. Allgaier ended up 17th after setting the pace for 39 laps and crashing on the final circuit.
Anthony Alfredo secured the $100,000 Dash 4 Cash bonus as the top finisher among four eligible drivers in the last race for the Xfinity Series initiative this year. Alfredo finished ninth and outdistanced Riley Herbst, Jesse Love and Ryan Sieg for the six-figure payday.
Herbst, Love and Sieg all found trouble in their bids for the Dash 4 Cash prize.
Sieg’s misfortune came first, when his No. 39 RSS Racing Ford caught fire through the first and second turns. He escaped unhurt but was sidelined after just 25 laps, leaving him 37th in the 38-car field.
Love, a first-time Xfinity Series winner last weekend at Talladega Superspeedway, led 21 laps in the early going.
The rookie’s No. 2 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet slowed after contact with the No. 20 Toyota of Truex near the start of the final stage, and his Lap 102 pit stop to change a flat left-rear tire shuffled him back in the order. Love finished two laps down in 24th.
Herbst was in solid position to capture the bonus, but late-race contact with Allgaier sent his No. 98 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford spinning through Turn 4, where he collected Sammy Smith and others on Lap 193. He continued with damage and finished 16th.