No Austin Hill win this go-around, but Richard Childress Racing still made an appearance in Victory Lane with 20-year-old Jesse Love, making it a fourth-consecutive NASCAR Xfinity Series season opener victory for the team.
Hill was once again a dominant force, winning Stage 2 before a mechanical failure sent him to the garage. That left the fate of RCR's win streak in the hands of his teammate, Love, who already had an Xfinity win going into Saturday night, from last season at Daytona's sister track, Talladega.
As the laps ticked away in Daytona, the wrecks became more frequent. A crash in the last ten laps triggered the sixth caution of the race, setting the end of the stage for a near sprint to the checkered. Another major crash with two laps to go put the race into Overtime.
Love fought hard to hold back the Haas duo of Sam Mayer and Sheldon Creed in the Overtime (and final) restart, slamming the door on them. Joe Gibbs Racing's Taylor Gray was also in the mix. Just as the field took the white flag, a major incident broke out mid-pack, taking out a chunk of the field and forcing another yellow. Yet, since Love had already taken the white flag, the race was able to end in a rather anticlimactic fashion with Love cruising to the checkered/yellow flags.
"I just listened to the guy up there," said Love, thanking his spotter for guiding him to victory. "I am so out of breath. Oh, my gosh, I'm out of breath. Just want to thank the good Lord above for putting me in this position. So many people have helped me get to this point ... Bummer what happened to 21 [Hill]. I'm not sure what happened but he was really dominant tonight, and we're working on changing our culture here at RCR.
"We're winners. We know we are. We all want to win a championship for Richard Childress. Man, that thing was as fast and I'm ready to go get to Atlanta now. It was awesome."
A caution-filled week
Mayer finished second and Creed third. Carson Kvapil and Tay. Gray rounded out the top-five. Harrison Burton, Jordan Anderson, Dean Thompson, Jeremy Clements, and Patrick Emerling filled out the remaining top-ten.
Unfortunately, Saturday's Xfinity race marked the third time this week an event ended under yellow flag conditions. Duel 2 and the NASCAR Truck Series season-opener both ended under yellow as well. Now we look ahead to the Daytona 500 on Sunday, which has culminated with a race-ending wreck for five consecutive years.
