John Hunter Nemechek spoils Kligerman’s first win hopes in Texas

Parker Kligerman was hoping to secure his maiden NASCAR Xfinity Series victory when he took the lead with less than ten laps remaining in Saturday’s Andy’s Frozen Custard 300 at Texas Motor Speedway. John Hunter Nemechek ended up with his seventh trip to Victory Lane instead.

Despite fumbling the final restart with ten laps remaining, set up by Kaz Grala and J.J. Yeley‘s wreck, Nemechek chased down on Kligerman before passing him three laps into the run.

“I messed up that final restart. It bounced out of third gear. That one was on me,” said Nemechek. “I knew that I had to push hard and try to recover right there, but hats off to the #20 team, Joe Gibbs Racing. It is absolutely amazing what we’ve been able to accomplish so far this year and I don’t think we are done yet. We set a lot of goals with this #20 team coming into this year and still yet to accomplish all of those, but win number seven.”

Pole winner Justin Allgaier was the race’s top driver but lost out to Kligerman after the two made contact and had to settle for fifth. Kligerman explained he did not “know how much we got squeezed or didn’t. I thought I could clear him easily but I got super loose. Feels like I got choked, he says he gave a lot of room. I’ll gave to look at it.

“I’m really disappointed right now. I could see that one, I could feel it. That was the best restart I’ve ever had in my life, put us in perfect position and had the tyre advantage, just choked. This one will hurt, but we’ll go make up for it next weekend.”

Allgaier commented the caution “kind of hurt us because we didn’t have tyres, but still thought we’d do a good job. Parker, when I went and I talked to him, said I squeezed him. I felt like I left him plenty of room there knowing he’d go to the bottom and he drove it in super, super deep into (turn) three. He’s been around the sport long enough to know what’s going to happen. Just disappointed. Not only did it mess up battling for second it put us way up in the marbles.”

Twelve cautions occurred, the most of the season and second most for an Xfinity race at Texas behind thirteen at the 2018 O’Reilly Auto Parts 300. While eight playoff drivers comprised the top eight, the remaining quartet of Josh Berry, Jeb Burton, Daniel Hemric, and Sam Mayer were taken out in wrecks that dropped all but Hemric below the cut line. Hemric still has a one-point edge over Kligerman for the eighth and final spot in the Round of 8 entering the Round of 12 finale at Charlotte.

Daniel Dye finished seventeenth in his first career Xfinity race.

Race results