Gragson dominates Homestead Xfinity Series field again but loses on another late shootout
Sunday afternoon’s Xfinity Series race at Homestead-Miami Speedway, the circuit’s second in as many days, followed a similar script to Saturday’s race — right up to the last-second caution and last second shootout.
And Noah Gragson once again saw a victory slip away as a result.
Gragson, who dominated the better part of Saturday’s Hooters 250 only to lose to Harrison Burton in a two-lap shootout after a late caution, once again looked to be the shoo-in to win Sunday’s Commander Boats 250 until the yellow flag flew on Lap 165, two laps before the race came to an end.
Two attempts at overtime later — Daniel Hemric and Riley Herbst crashed on the backstretch — and Chase Briscoe came out the victor. Gragson finished fifth. Brandon Jones, Ross Chastain and AJ Allmendinger were second, third and fourth.
The win was Briscoe’s circuit-leading third win of the season and comes one day after he had to come back from six laps behind after his No. 98 Ford dropped pieces of ballast on the race track during the pace laps leading to the start of the race, forcing him to go to pit road before the race started.
“We definitely weren’t the best car today,” Briscoe said, “But I thought we were yesterday so it’s nice to get some redemption.
“I felt like I put enough pressure on him after running down the straightaway that he would maybe make mistakes, but he did a really good job and I knew then that with two to go I just was trying to get more and more and more on the edge so you know the caution obviously fell absolutely perfect and the pit crew did an unbelievable job to get us out front. So, this is definitely a team win.”
Gragson had a slight lead on Briscoe at the time of the shootout-forcing caution. No one else was within 18 seconds of him.
But all of that became irrelevant when Austin Cindric forced a caution on Turn 3 just before the white flag could come out.
“Two [expletive] days in a row,” Gragson said on his scanner. “Are you [expletive] kidding me?”
The driver of the No. 9 PUBG Mobile Chevrolet, owned by Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s JR Motorsports, took his first lead on Lap 68, held the lead for 45 of the next 55 laps and then had to be strategic over the final 45 laps. He took his pits stop at Lap 123 and spent the next handful of laps getting back into the front of the pack and ultimately passing Austin Cindric on Lap 130. By Lap 136, Gragson had a three-second lead over his nearest competitors in Cindric and Chase Briscoe. Everyone else was more than 12 seconds behind.
It was a nearly identical performance to his run in Saturday’s Hooters 250, when he build a lead of nearly 10 seconds on the field. However, he lost the lead and the race after a caution with seven laps to go resulted in a late reset and a two-lap shootout determining the winner. Burton won. Gragson finished third.
Victory lap eluded him once again one day later.
DeSantis to start Cup race
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis served as the honorary starter for Sunday’s Dixie Vodka 400, the NASCAR Cup Series race and the final of four races at Homestead this weekend.
He waved the green flag to start the race for the 38-car field, one that had about 1,000 members of the military from the Homestead Air Reserve Base and the U.S. Southern Command in Doral in the grandstands.
The race came to a halt after five laps due to lightning.
“The return of professional sports to the State of Florida is extremely important with our safe, smart, step by step approach to reopening the Sunshine State, and we are proud that NASCAR is a big part of it,” DeSantis said in a press release.
Former Miami Hurricanes and Miami Dolphins coach Jimmy Johnson served as the race’s Grand Marshall.
This story was originally published June 14, 2020 at 2:32 PM.
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