NXS: Dillon Edges Busch in Fontana XFINITY Thriller

By all appearances it appeared that Saturday Afternoon’s TreatMyClot.com 300 would be another XFINITY Series race dominated by Joe Gibbs Racing.

Kyle Busch who was gunning for his fourth consecutive XFINITY Series win appeared to have full control of the race leading a race high 133 laps. He also had his JGR teammates Erik Jones and Daniel Suarez in a position for another sweep of the top three until about three laps to go when the race took a dramatic turn as Jones’ No. 20 Toyota would run out of fuel leading to an unscheduled pit stop relegating him to a 15th place finish in the final running order.

The focus then turned to Busch and Suarez in the remaining laps as Busch was nursing the fuel in his No. 18 NOS Toyota, the left front tire on Busch’s car was cut down. This allowed Suarez to momentarily take the lead away from Busch. However on the final lap Suarez would see his dreams of a first career series win vanish on the heels of a dry fuel tank with just a half a lap to go allowing Busch with a cut left front to retake the lead until turn four when Austin Dillon was able to make a move on the outside of Busch’s wounded machine to take the checkers. It was the only lap Dillon would lead all afternoon.

“He tried to screw us there at the end. It didn’t work out for him, did it? Man, I didn’t think we had the car to do that — and we didn’t,” Dillon said, who was third entering the final lap. “But we did what we needed to do, and that was win the race.”

Busch would limp across the line in the second spot, with crew chief Chris Gayle commenting post-race that it feels “really kind of sour” to be that strong and not score the victory.

“We obviously did everything right on fuel mileage, we made it past the checkered flag and we knew we would be close,” Gayle commented. “Just unfortunate – I don’t know if we ran over something or if it was just wear with the left front tire. It would have been nice to get a caution on that last lap and to be able to come down and fix that, but kind of everyone’s strategy was played out and it was what it was. It happened after we crossed for the white flag on the apron just before we got into turn one.”

Darrell Wallace Jr. would match his career best finish with a third place finish followed by Suarez, Elliott Sadler, Kevin Harvick, Brendan Gaughan, Kyle Larson, Brandon Jones, and Justin Allgaier.

“This is great,” Wallace commented. “I don’t know where to begin. We weren’t where we wanted to be in practice, but this was our better day of the two this week. I messed up in qualifying and that put us behind a little bit, but I knew we had a decent EcoBoost Ford Mustang to work with. The grip level that felt like we were lacking in practice was there for qualifying so I knew we’d have a good race today. It didn’t fire off like it did in qualifying, but we never gave up. I just kept talking to myself and singing to myself – anything I could do to stay calm and not get into the wall. This is a great day for our Ford EcoBoost team.”

Other notable finishers in Saturday’s race at Fontana include: Ryan Reed 14th, Jones 15th, Ty Dillon in 17th, and Ryan Blaney finished 20th.

With another top-five finish, Suarez remains the series points leader five races into the schedule.

“The whole run we were saving fuel. I knew that we were one to one-and-a-half laps short,” Suarez stated. “I was saving fuel. I wasn’t worrying about the 20 (Erik Jones) or 18 (Kyle Busch), I was just trying to finish the race because I knew that we were short. I knew that the 20 was a little bit shorter than us and eventually he ran out. When he ran out I started saving more because I knew that I had more fuel than him, but not a lot. I was just trying to save as much as I can. I passed the 18 when he blew the left front tire in (turns) one and two and on the exit of two I ran out of fuel and on the exit of four, the 2 (Austin Dillon) and the 18 passed me back. Very unfortunate but it’s part of racing. I really think that our first victory is coming and hopefully we can get it very soon.”