Aric Almirola won last night’s Xfinity Series race at Martinsville ahead of Sam Mayer and Chandler Smith in overtime. His victory came after a NASCAR yellow flagged the race on final lap over a crash involving pole-sitter Brandon Jones. But it wasn’t the biggest wreck that was caused by the JRM racer. During restart at the start of stage-2, a massive pile-up was witnessed at turn one, which race win contenders.
Due to a missed shift by Brandon Jones, a chain reaction was triggered, which saw a staggering 14 cars stacked against each other. This resulted in the elimination of five drivers, including Austin Hill, A.J. Allmendinger, Corey Heim, etc. The retirement of such fan-favorite drivers created tremendous waves in Xfinity series garages and caused outbursts against Jones.
Due to the No.9 driver’s misjudgment, repercussions were felt field-wide. However, most of the drivers were able to make it back to their garages and were able to rejoin the race after the caution period was over. Subsequently, the damage was limited as the race was a banger for fans and had multiple more cautions with a field of 31 drivers taking the chequered flag.
Aric Almirola overcame all these struggles before winning the DUDE WIPES 250
Aric Almirola claimed his first victory of the season and was on top of cloud nine with his achievement. However, this victory was not as easy to come by as the 40-year-old had only recently transitioned to driving in the Xfinity series, ending his Cup stint with SHR.
The JGR driver was a part of the Cup Series array of drivers and had a fair bit of success too. However, his campaign there soon ended after last year’s championship race where he finished outside the top-10. Following this, the No.19 driver decided to move to the Xfinity Series to spend the rest of the racing days on the NASCAR ladder.
You know the first two[races], it took me a while to really get re acclimated to driving these cars. They are so different than from what I drove for the last few years in the Cup cars. Aric Almirola said in a post-race interview.
However, he hit the ground running in Xfinity and claimed victory at Martinville despite having trouble adapting to the different styles of cars. Moreover, Almirola is now in the race to secure his place in the playoffs and would like to pose himself as a title contender in the series.
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