{"id":21969,"date":"2018-09-15T20:54:43","date_gmt":"2018-09-16T01:54:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=21969"},"modified":"2018-09-17T10:44:50","modified_gmt":"2018-09-17T15:44:50","slug":"nascar-xfinity-series-12-driver-playoff-field-set","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2018\/09\/15\/nascar-xfinity-series-12-driver-playoff-field-set\/","title":{"rendered":"NASCAR Xfinity Series 12-driver Playoff field set"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

Elliott Sadler, driver of the #1 OneMain Financial Chevrolet, Justin Allgaier, driver of the #7 BRANDT Professional Agriculture Chevrolet, Ryan Reed, driver of the #16 Drive Down A1C Lilly Diabetes Ford, Austin Cindric, driver of the #22 MoneyLion Ford, Ross Chastain, driver of the #42 DC Solar Chevrolet, x11 Cole Custer, driver of the #00 Code 3 Associates Ford, Matt Tifft, driver of the #2 KCMG Chevrolet, Daniel Hemric, driver of the #21 South Point Hotel & Casino Chevrolet, Tyler Reddick, driver of the #9 Nationwide Children’s Chevrolet, Brandon Jones, driver of the #19 Menards Mastercraft Doors Toyota, and Christopher Bell, driver of the #20 GameStop Tomb Raider Toyota pose for a photo after making the the NASCAR Xfinity Series Playoffs following the NASCAR Xfinity Series DC Solar 300 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on September 15, 2018 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Sam Wasson\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service<\/em><\/p>\n

LAS VEGAS \u2013 The NASCAR Xfinity Series<\/a> regular season finale at Las Vegas Motor Speedway<\/strong> was high action and great drama with a first time winner in Ross Chastain<\/strong> and the 12 championship eligible drivers entering the race maintaining their contention for the opening round of the Playoffs, which begin next week at Richmond, Va.<\/p>\n

Chastain\u2019s Chip Ganassi Racing No. 42 Chevrolet held off five-time season winner Justin Allgaier and fellow Playoff bound driver Cole Custer for his first career victory in 132 NASCAR Xfinity Series starts. Allgaier wrapped up the regular season title following the second stage of Saturday\u2019s race and will take a seven-point advantage over Christopher Bell and the rest of the 12-driver field heading into the Playoff opener next week.<\/p>\n

Custer enters the Playoffs ranked third sharing the same points total with veteran Elliott Sadler, who led the championship for 15 weeks and announced earlier this season he would be retiring following the season finale.<\/p>\n

Daniel Hemric, Tyler Reddick and Vegas winner Chastain all move into the Playoffs a point behind Custer and Sadler. Brandon Jones, Ryan Truex, Matt Tifft, Austin Cindric and Ryan Reed round out the 12-driver field vying for the championship.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like today was a lot of fun, comers and goers, guys good on the short run, guys good on the long run,\u2019\u2019 Allgaier said. \u201cEverybody at one point in the race that we\u2019ll be battling [in the Playoffs] had a run or two where they were really, really good.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that shows the strength of the series. We\u2019re going to have to execute and do our job.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

Allgaier has certainly executed this season \u2013 his win total (five) more than doubles his career win total in nine previous Xfinity seasons. The 32-year old Illinois native\u2019s runner-up finish gave him a series best 21 top-10s in 2018. He has five runner-up finishes in addition to his victory total in the JR Motorsports No. 7 Chevrolet.<\/p>\n

Eight of the top-10 finishers Saturday advanced to the Playoffs \u2013 something that bodes well for the competitive nature of the series. The rookie Bell, who finished fourth on Saturday, takes four wins into the Playoffs. Reddick, who won the season-opener at Daytona Beach, and Chastain are the other race winners.<\/p>\n

Although Chastain led 180 of the 200 laps, he was definitely pressured throughout the race. And the pack of cars on his bumper were driven by equally motivated Playoff competitors eager to glean some good mojo for next week\u2019s Playoff opener. He, Allgaier and Custer traded the point often and Hemric led as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust didn\u2019t have everything go our way, but I\u2019m glad we\u2019re in it and we\u2019re going to be a force to be reckoned with,\u2019\u2019 Custer promised on pit road.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like we compete for wins each weekend, it\u2019s just about having it all fall in place. We have to just keep trying to do what we do.\u201d<\/p>\n

For a couple of the Playoff contenders, Saturday afternoon marked a rough end for the regular season. Tifft and Reed were involved in a crash only 63 laps into the race. Reddick and Hemric were collected in an accident with only 12 laps remaining. Both of them had been front-running cars for much of the race.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s better to have this day today rather than in the Playoffs,\u2019\u2019 Tifft said, managing a smile. \u201cWe had the speed today again, just a freak deal [the accident]. I\u2019m real excited about the Playoffs, a lot of tracks really suit me and our team\u2019s strengths. I\u2019m looking forward to get going.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cYou saw it today, it\u2019s going to be a lot of hard, close racing. We saw it all year, we\u2019ve been putting on some incredible races. Glad to be a part of it and hope to come out on top.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service LAS VEGAS \u2013 The NASCAR Xfinity Series regular season finale at Las Vegas Motor Speedway was high action and great drama with a first time winner in Ross Chastain and the 12 championship eligible drivers entering the race maintaining their contention for the opening round of the Playoffs, which […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21971,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11],"tags":[67,16,181],"class_list":["post-21969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","tag-las-vegas-motor-speedway","tag-nascar","tag-nascar-xfinity-series"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/NXS_LVMS_Playoffs_091518-e1537198939402.jpg?fit=640%2C424&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-5Il","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21969"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21969\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21972,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21969\/revisions\/21972"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}