By Jared Mogard
(LAS VEGAS, NV) The sixth round of the 2017 ASRS Xfinity Series brought the teams to the Las Vegas Motor Speedway for 100 laps of action tonight. It would be Justin Brown setting fast time and taking the pole award, to his outside bringing the field to green would be Sam Maxwell to start this 100 lap event. Three drivers failed to qualify: #2 Jordan Harnish, #08 Gary Nichols, and #35 Michael Cunic. The race would see 8 caution flag periods for 29 laps with 11 different lead changes.
Sam Maxwell would jump to the early race lead before having to do battle with Jake Douglas, Zac Bozanich, and Justin Brown. The battle was a good one until there was contact with Zac getting into the wall and bouncing off getting into Jake Douglas resulting in the first yellow flag of the event. Ty Hester would take the lead and would hold it till Jared Mogard would work his way to the front to take the lead. Mogard would go on to lead the next 51 laps which extended through multiple yellow flag periods and a few pit stops.
The final set of pit stops came with just under 30 laps to go where Mogard who was the race leader brought the field down for their final stop of the event. A slow stop would cost Mogard the race lead. The beneficial after pit stops would be Sam Maxwell would got out of pit road first and regained the lead. What turned out to be the final restart would come with 25 laps to go which seen Sam Maxwell take his #98 to the race lead and never looked back as he would cruise to victory. The yellow would come out with 3 laps to go thus ending the race under yellow. Sam Maxwell and Justin Brown finished 1st and 2nd flip flopping from their original starting spots. Zac Bozanich was 3rd, Jared Mogard 4th, and Ty Hester the series point leader finished with a solid 5th place finish.
After six the Xfinity Series Championship Standings, which see the top 8 in the standings make the Xfinity Series “Playoffs” see Ty Hester still atop the standings, Sam Maxwell 2nd, Justin Brown 3rd, Jason Stewart 4th, Allan Young 5th, Jonathan Holstein 6th, Tom Giannini 7th, and tied for the 8th and final spot Zac Bozanich AND Jared Mogard.
Next week the ASRS Xfinity Series hits the high banks of the Daytona International Speedway for 60 laps of plate racing.