Since entering NASCAR in 2015, you would be hard pressed to find a sponsor that has done more for the sport than Xfinity. The company has branded its name all over the NASCAR playoffs, became a premier partner of the NASCAR Cup Series and markets its series where names are made.
It’s hard to argue. With Ty Gibbs moving to the Cup Series for the 2023 season, all but one of its champions since 2015 reside in the top echelon of North American motorsports. Daniel Hemric, the 2021 Xfinity Series champion, ran a partial Cup schedule with Kaulig Racing in 2022 and will likely do the same this year.
The action on the track was fierce in 2023, with a record-tying 19 different Cup winners in the 36-race schedule. The Xfinity Series had Gibbs, Noah Gragson and AJ Allmendinger break out and stamped their name into active Cup Series drivers.
Let’s take a look at 10 moments that stood out from the 2022 NASCAR season that included Xfinity branding.
Hail Melon
Prior to Xfinity’s first dab into race sponsorship in 2020, Matt Lederer, vp of brand partnership and amplification at Comcast, said it was a strategic play in choosing the penultimate race of the season at Martinsville. And while the paperclip almost never disappoints, the final half-mile in the fall’s Xfinity 500 was something nobody has ever seen before.
Ross Chastain decided not to lift and shifted into fifth gear entering turn 3. His viral maneuver against the move gained him a handful of positions – enough to narrowly crack into the Championship 4. It’s a move that can be replicated but never duplicated, as everything was on the line for the No. 1 team.
Walk-Off Win
The winner of the aforementioned Martinsville race was Christopher Bell. And it was a must-win. Fortunately for Bell, it wasn’t the first time he was in that position during the 2022 postseason.
Three weeks earlier, Bell, who entered the Charlotte Motor Speedway ROVAL needing to win in order to advance to the Round of 8, did just that. The No. 20 Toyota didn’t have the sheer speed to be a winning car, but his crew chief Adam Stevens made a gutsy call late in the race to pit for fresh tires after a caution flew from a sign being stopped in the middle of the racing groove. Bell made quick work of his competition to get to second, before another caution flew. He took the lead from Kevin Harvick and never looked back.
It was another highlight reel type of moment for Xfinity, which…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at …