Stock Car Racing

Austin Dillon Sweeps Charlotte With Xfinity Victory

Pete McCole

Austin Dillon
Mike Mercurio/AR1

Austin Dillon lit up the field to win Saturday night's Drive for the Cure 300 for his fourth NASCAR Xfinity Series victory of the year, sweeping both of the seasons Xfinity races at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

Dillon took the lead following a restart with 54 laps to go, diving under Erik Jones after going three-wide with Kyle Busch for the lead.

Dillon held on through one last yellow flag and led the final 44 green-flag laps to beat Jones by 2.8 seconds to collect his sixth-career Xfinity Series victory.

Brad Keselowski was third, followed by Daniel Suarez and Regan Smith.

[adinserter name="GOOGLE AD"]Despite having started on the pole, Dillon struggled early, falling back to seventh as his team and crew chief Danny Stockman worked to dial in Dillon's no. 33 Chevrolet and get him back into contention.

"This one meant a lot," said Dillon. "We've won most of our races from the pole, and usually lead a lot of laps, but tonight we started off little off. We were pretty loose that whole last run, but it worked out and we were good enough to win the race.

"Danny (Stockman) did a great job, big adjustments from the first two runs. We just needed to get our track positions back. The caution came out and that was perfect for us."

Dillon got fireworks on both ends of the race, after an errant firework rained down on him during pre-race festivities, burning Dillon's firesuit.

"I was actually praying with my girlfriend and fireworks hit me in the back," said Dillon. "It started burning and I jumped and kinda pushed her out of the way. It was pretty crazy. I don't know if it was a sign from God, saying 'you're getting ready have a good night, get your butt in gear.'"

Kyle Busch led 102 laps before crashing with 48 laps to go
Mike Mercurio/AR1

For much of the race, the night seemed to belong to Busch, who proved to have the dominant car after taking the lead on lap 40, holding onto the top spot as the field cycled through the first two round of pit stops.

Busch's momentum hit the wall ' literally ' on a restart following a caution flag on lap 143, as Busch faced a strong challenge from his teammate Erik Jones.

Jones, who had run in the top five all night, got a nice push from Dillon to edge ahead of Busch on the restart and powered past as Busch tumbled back to fourth.

As the two came through turn four, Jones pulled up to the high side of the track as Dillon edged to the bottom to take the lead.

Busch was able to gather himself back up and managed to get around Kahne to take third, but Kahne fought back, running Busch hard for position before the two made contact on lap 152, sending both into the turn four wall.

Kahne was able to soldier on, but Busch was done for the night, ending up with a 31st-place finish after leading a race-high 102 laps.

[adinserter name="GOOGLE AD"]"Kyle got mad because he got into it with his teammate (Jones) off Turn 2 on the start," said Kahne after the race. "That shuffled him back to where I was, and I'm racing to try to get by him. He started beating on me down the back and on the front, and I overdrove Turn 3 and got into him."

The ensuing caution flag brought the leaders to pit road, with Dillon winning the race out of the pits to retain the lead.

Erik Jones
Mike Mercurio/AR1

Once under green, Dillon was untouchable, opening up a two-second lead that Jones wasn't able to overcome.

"I thought we had it on that one, but he (Austin Dillon) just got a really good run down the backstretch," said Jones. "I tried to get him back down the front stretch and just couldn't quite clear him into one and unfortunately that was kind of the rest of the race for us after that. Overall, good day for us. We ran out front and second place is never fun, but it's nice to know we were as fast as we were."

Ty Dillon finished sixth while Xfinity Series points leader Chris Buescher came home seventh ahead of Darrell Wallace, Jr. Defending series champion Chase Elliott ended up ninth followed by Elliott Sadler.

Elliott fell two more points behind Buescher in the points standings, now trailing by 26 points.

Results

Pos No. Driver Make Start Laps Led Points Status
1 33 Austin Dillon Chevrolet 1 200 61 0 Running
2 20 Erik Jones Toyota 3 200 0 0 Running
3 22 Brad Keselowski Ford 13 200 0 0 Running
4 18 Daniel Suarez Toyota 7 200 1 41 Running
5 7 Regan Smith Chevrolet 12 200 0 39 Running
6 3 Ty Dillon Chevrolet 8 200 0 38 Running
7 60 Chris Buescher Ford 4 200 0 37 Running
8 6 Darrell Wallace Jr Ford 9 200 0 36 Running
9 9 Chase Elliott Chevrolet 17 200 0 35 Running
10 1 Elliott Sadler Ford 10 200 0 34 Running
11 16 Ryan Reed Ford 11 200 0 33 Running
12 88 Kasey Kahne Chevrolet 2 200 34 0 Running
13 2 Brian Scott Chevrolet 6 200 0 31 Running
14 39 Ryan Sieg Chevrolet 14 200 2 31 Running
15 62 Brendan Gaughan Chevrolet 15 199 0 29 Running
16 43 Dakoda Armstrong Ford 18 199 0 28 Running
17 98 Ryan Truex Ford 16 199 0 27 Running
18 01 Landon Cassill Chevrolet 20 199 0 26 Running
19 28 J.J. Yeley Toyota 21 198 0 25 Running
20 51 Jeremy Clements Chevrolet 23 198 0 24 Running
21 42 Brennan Poole Chevrolet 22 197 0 23 Running
22 25 John Wes Townley Chevrolet 26 196 0 0 Running
23 97 Ryan Ellis Chevrolet 28 195 0 0 Running
24 4 Ross Chastain Chevrolet 19 194 0 20 Running
25 44 David Starr Toyota 27 194 0 19 Running
26 14 Cale Conley Toyota 40 193 0 18 Running
27 52 Joey Gase Chevrolet 31 192 0 17 Running
28 24 Eric McClure Toyota 32 191 0 16 Running
29 74 Mike Harmon Dodge 38 187 0 15 Running
30 90 Jimmy Weller III Chevrolet 25 164 0 14 Running
31 54 Kyle Busch Toyota 5 153 102 0 Accident
32 70 Derrike Cope Chevrolet 34 150 0 12 Running
33 8 Blake Koch Toyota 24 149 0 11 Running
34 13 Harrison Rhodes Dodge 39 90 0 10 Ignition
35 15 B J McLeod Chevrolet 35 59 0 0 Engine
36 26 T.J. Bell Toyota 30 56 0 0 Electrical
37 89 Morgan Shepherd Chevrolet 33 46 0 7 Fuel Pressure
38 0 Josh Reaume Chevrolet 37 31 0 6 Vibration
39 40 Timmy Hill Chevrolet 36 16 0 0 Steering
40 19 Jeff Green Toyota 29 3 0 4 Vibration