Noah Gragson notched his third-straight NASCAR Xfinity Series win on Friday (Sept. 17) in the Food City 300 at Bristol Motor Speedway with Brandon Jones, Austin Hill, Sam Mayer and Riley Herbst rounding out the top five.
Since announcing he would be headed to Petty GMS Motorsports in the NASCAR Cup Series a few weeks ago, Gragson has apparently decided to make the Xfinity Series his sandbox. His first of the three wins came three weeks ago at Darlington Raceway, where he was essentially in the right place at the right time. Last week at Kansas Speedway the race was shortened by rain, but this week Gragson left no doubts.
HE CLIMBED OUT OF THE ROOF!@NoahGragson celebrated a win at @BMSupdates in classic Noah Gragson fashion. #NASCAR pic.twitter.com/0ztJo7uV7T
— NASCAR on NBC (@NASCARonNBC) September 17, 2022
This was also the final race before the playoffs begin, and believe it or not, plenty of sparks flew (both literally and figuratively), so let’s dive in.
The Winners
Jeremy Clements kicks off this week’s Winners list, and it’s not for anything he did on Friday. Clements won the Daytona International Speedway race right before Gragson began his recent reign of mullet-toting terror and locked himself into the playoffs, or so he thought. It came out later that his car had been called to a random inspection and did not pass.
NASCAR fined the small Jeremy Clements Racing team $60,000, 75 driver and owner points, 10 playoff points and deemed the Daytona win ineligible for the playoffs. Clements would appeal, and earlier this week they won that appeal, immediately inserting Clements back into the playoff picture.
I’ll delve into just how big that was for the playoff picture in a moment, but the fact that a small team can go to the board of appeals, show NASCAR the error of their ways and keep their championship hopes alive in the process is big in itself and truly shows why this series is so special.
🏁 #GodIsGood pic.twitter.com/WAjdSJHT2D
— Jeremy Clements (@JClements51) September 13, 2022
With a 10th-place finish on Friday, Ryan Sieg was able to etch his name into the list of playoff-bound drivers. The magic number for Sieg was a 14th-place finish or higher, and he was able to get it done. Sieg shared his thoughts on being the final playoff driver post-race.
“All in all, just a great day for our CMR A-game Ford. Just grinded it out and found ourselves going to the Playoffs. It’s amazing for our small team,” Sieg said.
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