At the green flag for the Xfinity Series’ debut at race Portland International Raceway, Sam Mayer spun through traffic in the opening chicane while polesitter Anthony Alfredo and second-place starter Austin Hill missed the first turn completely.
It was a sign of things to come.
By the time the dust settled, 12 cars had crashed out the race and at least double that amount were involved in incidents throughout the day, as drivers struggled with heavy rain and chaotic restarts throughout the afternoon.
Even road-racing ace AJ Allmendinger, who went on to win by nearly three seconds over Myatt Snider, was not immune to the struggles. Allmendinger went off course during the pace laps before the start of the race, and he then spun a second time in the opening laps. With his opening struggles, he was already a lap down to leader Ty Gibbs before the race had reached lap 10.
But with the help of an early caution to get back on the lead lap and a clean second half of the race, it was Allmendinger who prevailed for his eighth road-course win in the Xfinity Series.
“I crashed before we went green,” Allmendinger told FOX Sports 1 during his race-winning interview. “I was off the racetrack I think four times, made all kinds of mistakes, was all over the place.”
“It might be one of the craziest wins I’ve ever had.”
After the first lap confusion, the race was relatively clean for the first few laps aside from a couple harmless spins. But the first major incident came on lap 13, when Mayer got into the back of another car while trying to avoid a spinning Brandon Jones. With irreparable damage, Mayer was the first car out of the race.
The next major incident came at the start of stage two, as Riley Herbst was spun in front of the field by Sheldon Creed on lap 28. Not everyone was able to avoid him, and he was slammed from behind by Gray Gaulding. Both drivers were done for the day.
The race was even full of chaos to the point that there were crashes under…
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