By Zach Arnold

The race began with the No. 18 of Sammy Smith leading the field to turn one. Smith entered the race as one of the playoff drivers in the Round of 8 in a must-win scenario entering the day.

There was one caution throughout stage one, as the No. 29 of Kyle Seig spun in turns one and two. Sam Mayer received the worst amount of damage under this caution; he rammed into the car ahead of him and left the nose of his car buckled up. Fortunately, the damage was not race-ending and the No. 1 is already locked into the championship four due to winning last weekend’s race.

The rest of stage one raced clean. Allgaier won the stage after staying out on old tires, receiving the lead after others in front went to pit road for new tires and fuel during the last caution.

Smith resumed in the lead to begin stage two, and pretty much dominated the stage. One caution in the stage involved Layne Riggs and Cole Custer, both had minimal damage and were able to continue. The No. 11 of Riggs got bumped in the rear by Custer. After stage two ended, the No. 20 team and John Hunter Nemechek found themselves in a safe area, as they earned enough points to take the second spot in the championship four. This left two positions open out of six playoff drivers to battle it out in the final stage.

Most of the battling happened with less than ten laps to go. Out of the many cautions in stage three, one brought out the red flag after about nine or ten cars were involved in a pileup on the backstretch with six laps remaining in the race. This paused the race for 28 minutes as the track needed to be cleaned and repairs tended.

This caution set up an overtime finish and many different playoff scenarios. Sammy Smith and Sheldon Creed were not able to make the championship four on points, so they both needed to win the race to advance. Justin Allgaier and Cole Custer were in different positional situations.

Richard Childress Racing teammates Austin Hill and Sheldon Creed led the field to the green-white-checkered. They both battled a hard two laps, and were side by side for the entirety of the closing laps. This was until the Creed drove up the track on the final turn into Hill, letting the No. 7 of Allgaier squeeze by for the win.

Justin Allgaier, John Hunter Nemechek, Sam Mayer, and Cole Custer are the four drivers that fill up the championship four. Tune into USA Network next Saturday at 7:00 p.m to find out who hoists the championship trophy.