Kyle Larson Wins NASCAR Xfinity Race in Double Overtime while Subbing for Connor Zilisch

Saturday afternoon in double-overtime after 11 cautions, 2021 NASCAR Cup Series champion Kyle Larson claimed his second win of the year in NASCAR’s second-tier series as an unexpected ringer for JR Motorsports.

Midweek, Kyle Larson got the call asking him to sub in for Connor Zilisch in the JR Motorsports No. 88 for the Andy’s Frozen Custard 300 at Texas Motor Speedway. Zilisch suffered a back injury on the final lap at Talladega last week, and while he was first reported to be just sore and OK to race, his team came to the decision to have him sit out the week heading into the Xfinity Series break.

Ultimately, Larson would lead 32 of 208 laps to beat Sam Mayer to the line by 1.265 seconds.

Austin Hill and Justin Allgaier were the Xfinity Series’ best chance of keeping Larson at bay. Kyle Larson recently shared that when he races in the Xfinity Series, his goal is to embarrass the full-time drivers to prepare them for the next level.

In the final stage, Justin Allgaier was the first big contender to lose their chance after leading 99 laps and winning the opening stage. Allgaier was coming up on Chris Wright several laps down when Wright changed his line multiple times, and Allgaier had no chance of avoiding the much slower car.

With Allgaier out of the way, Larson won the restart against Austin Hill and was pulling away in the final stage when more drivers started getting snake-bit by the Texas track.

Hill fell to Nick Sanchez, and Larson pulled away to six seconds ahead of the field, With 15 laps remaining, Hill gets by Sanchez to try and reel in Larson. Hill secured his sixth stage win, the most of any driver in the Xfinity Series this season.

With 12 laps in regulation, Corey Day crashed from a top 15-spot,

and Larson’s No. 88 team decided that tires were more important than position. Sanchez and Hill both stayed out. Larson restarted seventh and was in fourth by the first turn, pushing Sam Mayer to the lead by the backstretch and almost securing second when he went too high and fell back to fourth, then passed for third before the 10th caution flag waved this time for Sammy Smith getting into the wall.

Smith had rebounded from an accident on lap seven to be running in the top ten at the end of regulation. On the restart, Sanchez took the outside in order to keep Larson away from the front row and maybe secure help from the Cup Series vet in pushing him to his first Xfinity Series win and only the second win for Big Machine Racing.

Larson made it by Sanchez and was firmly in second when Jeremy Clements hit the wall, bringing on double overtime.

Tanner Gray started behind Mayer and Sanchez behind Larson on the final restart. Gray drove into Mayer’s back bumper, causing too much wiggle. Larson was easily able to take the lead with his fresh tires from the Day caution 16 laps earlier. The white flag secured Larson’s lead and the checkered flag his victory.

“There was a lot of survival throughout that race, dodging some wrecks, balance we had to work on quite a bit,” Larson told The CW Sports’ Kim Coon. “It was fun, I felt like my car, if I could ever get to the lead, I could stretch out. I just couldn’t get by Justin; he was doing a good job of running where I needed to be.”

Larson added that he wished that Connor would’ve been able to experience that race, but was happy to be the one trusted with the call.

“Obviously, I wish Connor were in the car, but it means a lot that they thought of me to call up to run this thing,” Larson added.

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