{"id":45161,"date":"2024-03-30T23:12:32","date_gmt":"2024-03-31T04:12:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=45161"},"modified":"2024-04-09T10:27:50","modified_gmt":"2024-04-09T15:27:50","slug":"chandler-smith-wins-second-xfinity-race-of-the-season-at-richmond","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2024\/03\/30\/chandler-smith-wins-second-xfinity-race-of-the-season-at-richmond\/","title":{"rendered":"Chandler Smith wins second Xfinity race of the season at Richmond"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Chandler Smith, driver of the #81 Mobil 1 Toyota, celebrates in victory lane after winning the NASCAR Xfinity Series ToyotaCare 250 at Richmond Raceway on March 30, 2024 in Richmond, Virginia. (Photo by Alex Slitz\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

By Holly Cain<\/em><\/p>\n

NASCAR Wire Service<\/em><\/p>\n

Chandler Smith led a Joe Gibbs Racing sweep at Richmond (Va.) Raceway Saturday afternoon cruising to a 4.495-seconds victory over teammates Aric Almirola and Tanner Gray in the ToyotaCare 250 NASCAR Xfinity Series race.<\/p>\n

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Chandler Smith, driver of the #81 Mobil 1 Toyota, takes the checkered flag to win the NASCAR Xfinity Series ToyotaCare 250 at Richmond Raceway on March 30, 2024 in Richmond, Virginia. (Photo by Jonathan Bachman\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

It marks back-to-back wins in this race for Smith \u2013 answering his first career Xfinity Series victory last Spring \u2013 and he led the final 60 laps in the No. 81 JGR Toyota, 76 laps on the day for his third career win, second of the season. It was his teammate Almirola, who won both Stages and led a race best 95 of the 250 laps in his No. 20 JGR Toyota, but the former fulltime NASCAR Cup Series driver ultimately could not catch Smith, who pulled away in the closing laps.<\/p>\n

\u201cNever give up, never give up,\u201d said Smith, who has top-10 finishes in all six races this year. \u201cThis car was not good. Stage 1 wasn\u2019t good, but we were able to do some strategy there with this No. 81 Supra in Stage 2.<\/p>\n

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Chandler Smith, driver of the #81 Mobil 1 Toyota, celebrates with a burnout after winning the NASCAR Xfinity Series ToyotaCare 250 at Richmond Raceway on March 30, 2024 in Richmond, Virginia. (Photo by Jonathan Bachman\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cBack here winning races on a consistent basis and took over the points lead too, I\u2019m just blessed,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

For his part Almirola acknowledged he just didn\u2019t have what he needed to catch the 21-year old Georgia-native in the closing laps. He\u2019ll have another chance at victory next week as he\u2019s in the car again at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just got a little bit too loose,\u201d Almirola said. \u201cThe run before that in Stage 2, when I took off my car was really, really good. At the end, it just felt a little tight and that last run for whatever reason, different set of tires or what, I let Chandler go and when I started to just creep back to him, I didn\u2019t have anything to go with.<\/p>\n

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Chandler Smith, driver of the #81 Mobil 1 Toyota, celebrates after winning the NASCAR Xfinity Series ToyotaCare 250 at Richmond Raceway on March 30, 2024 in Richmond, Virginia. (Photo by Jonathan Bachman\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cI was too loose in and couldn\u2019t get throttle down on exit. Hate that to win both stages and feel like we had the dominant car and then to let it slip away there at the end, is disappointing.\u201d<\/p>\n

The JGR team can also take pride in its third-place finish \u2013 considering it was the 19-year old Gray\u2019s series debut. NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series full-timer Corey Heim was fourth followed by series rookie Jesse Love.<\/p>\n

It was also a big outing for renowned late model racer Bubba Pollard, punctuating his series debut with a sixth-place finish in the No. 88 JR Motorsports Chevrolet \u2013 particularly impressive considering Pollard started 37th.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Aric Almirola, driver of the #20 He Gets Us Toyota, and Chandler Smith, driver of the #81 Mobil 1 Toyota, race during the NASCAR Xfinity Series ToyotaCare 250 at Richmond Raceway on March 30, 2024 in Richmond, Virginia. (Photo by Jonathan Bachman\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cI just got behind in qualifying there and it made for a long day,\u201d Pollard said. \u201cBut these guys gave me a great race car, JR Motorsports.<\/p>\n

\u201cI needed that long green flag run just to get in a rhythm. This place is tough, it\u2019s technical and probably one of the toughest places I\u2019ve been to, and I\u2019ve been to a lot of places.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m happy with it. I enjoyed it and had fun and hopefully the fans enjoyed it too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Big Machine Racing\u2019s Parker Kligerman, Richard Childress Racing\u2019s Austin Hill, JR Motorsports Sammy Smith and reigning series champion Cole Custer rounded out the top-10. The 20-year old Parker Retzlaff, who won his first career pole position Saturday, finished 16th in the No. 31 Jordan Anderson Chevrolet and led a career high 27 laps.<\/p>\n

With their work, Smith, Almirola, Love and Kligerman have qualified for next week\u2019s Dash 4 Cash event at Martinsville Speedway, and the highest finisher of the four Dash 4 Cash drivers in the race will collect an extra $100,000 bonus.<\/p>\n

With the win, Smith takes a 10-point driver standings lead over Hill to next Saturday\u2019s DUDE Wipes 250 (7:30 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). John Hunter Nemechek is the defending race winner.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Holly Cain NASCAR Wire Service Chandler Smith led a Joe Gibbs Racing sweep at Richmond (Va.) Raceway Saturday afternoon cruising to a 4.495-seconds victory over teammates Aric Almirola and Tanner Gray in the ToyotaCare 250 NASCAR Xfinity Series race. It marks back-to-back wins in this race for Smith \u2013 answering his first career Xfinity […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":676,"featured_media":45148,"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":[858,16,181,486],"class_list":["post-45161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","tag-chandler-smith","tag-nascar","tag-nascar-xfinity-series","tag-richmond-raceway"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/GettyImages-2125792213-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1707&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-bKp","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45161","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\/676"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45161"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45161\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45164,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45161\/revisions\/45164"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}