Noah Gragson defended well against Ty Gibbs in the final laps to win the NASCAR Xfinity Series’ Explore the Pocono Mountains 225 at Pocono Raceway Saturday (July 23).
Gragson got by his JR Motorsports teammate Josh Berry to take the lead. Gragson then raced a clean battle with Gibbs to win his third race of the season and eighth of his career.
Gibbs came in second, while Berry finished third. AJ Allmendinger and Sheldon Creed rounded out the top five.
The race saw some pretty big moments, both early on and in stage three.
Around lap 2, Rajah Caruth tried to slide up behind Alex Labbe coming off of turn 3 and didn’t clear him. Both cars turned left hard into the inside wall, ending their days early.
Then in stage three, the Big One occurred when Santino Ferrucci got loose off of turn 3 and slid right in front of Ricky Stenhouse Jr. The No. 48 crunched its front nose and spun down across the track as Jeb Burton tried to thread the needle. Unfortunately, Burton ran out of room, getting tagged by Stenhouse and flipping over on his lid.
Another look at the bizarre crash that saw Jeb Burton going for a wild ride in the No. 27 car. #NASCAR
📺 : @USA_Network pic.twitter.com/s7aUHM6GiR
— NASCAR on NBC (@NASCARonNBC) July 23, 2022
Burton was ok but did not finish for the second race in a row.
A couple of other drivers also had major damage from the accident, including Ronnie Bassett Jr. and Jeremy Clements.
Soon after the race went back to green, Sammy Smith got loose while racing with Landon Cassill and made slight contact before spinning around and rear-ending the wall.
Meanwhile, JR Motorsports swept the stages, with Justin Allgaier taking the opening stage and Gragson claiming stage two. Allgaier ended up speeding on his last pit stop on lap 54.
In the end, Gragson got back out in front and kept the lead from Gibbs.
The Xfinity Series turns left and right next Saturday, July 30 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course. The race will air at 3:30 p.m. ET on NBC.
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