John Hunter Nemechek led 198 of 250 laps en route to his second win of the NASCAR Xfinity Series season Saturday night (April 15) at Martinsville Speedway and fourth career win overall.
Nemechek held off teammate Sammy Smith and Cole Custer on multiple restarts to score the race win and the Dash 4 Cash victory. Smith finished second after a last-lap pass on Custer, who settled for third. Josh Berry finished fourth after having a flat tire early in the race, and Brandon Jones scored his first top five for JR Motorsports, finishing fifth.
Justin Allgaier finished sixth, Daniel Hemric was seventh, Derek Kraus crossed the line in eighth, Brett Moffitt finished ninth after an early spin, and Chandler Smith finished up the top 10.
Custer and Nemechek led the field to green for the 250-lap race. Custer led the first five laps before Nemechek made the pass to grab the lead. The first caution waved on lap 36 when Moffitt spun in turn 3. Nemechek led 55 of the first 60 laps and won stage one.
Some of the drivers pitted during the first caution; Austin Hill restarted as the leader for stage two. On lap 74, Josh Berry took the lead. After Kaden Honeycutt blew a motor on lap 86, Sammy Smith and Berry battled for the lead on the restart. However, Nemechek grabbed the lead on lap 107 and became the first driver to sweep both stages in a Xfinity Series race at Martinsville.
Nemechek led the field to the green for stage three. A wreck on lap 134 brought out the fifth caution when Ryan Ellis and Joe Graf Jr. wrecked in turn 1. On lap 143, a four-car wreck brought out the sixth yellow; Alex Labbe, Dawson Cram, Leland Honeyman, and Kyle Sieg crashed on the backstretch.
On lap 209 the eighth caution waved for Jeremy Clements in turn 2. The leaders came to pit road, Nemechek won the race off pit road.
On lap 221 Ryan Truex ran into Sam Mayer and Riley Herbst bringing out the ninth caution. Nemechek led the rest of the way to win his second race of the season.
The Xfinity Series is on track next week at Talladega Superspeedway. You can watch the race Saturday (April 22) at 4 p.m. ET on Fox Sports 1
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