Reigning series champion Cole Custer won his second race in 2024 with a dominant victory at Bristol Motor Speedway. In doing so, he claimed the NASCAR Xfinity Series regular season championship.
Custer was able to make up a 42-point deficit on Justin Allgaier, leading the majority of the remaining laps in stage three.
“Man, it’s unbelievable, just a testament to these guys,” said Custer after the race. “A really hard month, but everybody really kept their heads in it. It’s huge to get this momentum because our confidence was going down the last couple of months.”
Custer outdueled Sheldon Creed early in stage three. Creed came home second and extended his record of second-place finishes without a win to 13. Polesitter Chandler Smith followed up Creed in third along with Jesse Love in fourth and Ryan Truex rounding out the top five.
Brandon Jones, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Ryan Sieg, Sam Mayer and AJ Allmendinger finished sixth through tenth, respectively.
Custer overcame a right front tire failure in the opening laps of the race. Custer, running third at the time, shot up the racetrack prompting the first caution of the race.
The second caution came midway through stage one when Austin Green blew a tire, slamming the outside wall. He then slid down the racetrack in front of then-race leader Allgaier. Allgaier and Parker Retzlaff were both collected in the incident.
After a chaotic couple of laps, Smith was able to cruise to the stage one victory leading the back half of the stage.
Early in stage two, another caution came out after Parker Kligerman slid sideways in turns 3 and 4 after contact from the front bumper of Brennan Poole. Kligerman received no damage and continued.
A caution came in the closing laps of stage two when Creed, Mayer and Allgaier battled for position. While attempting to pass Mayer, Creed was hit by Allgaier, causing the latter to spin down the race track and hit the inside wall, effectively ending his night and losing him the regular season title.
The incident led to a shootout that saw Jeremy Clements capture a surprise stage two victory, the first stage win of his career.
With no new winner, Sammy Smith’s 15th-place finish was enough to claim the final playoff spot along with Kligerman, who locked into the next round on points early in the race.
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