Noah Gragson snaps winless streak and wins at Darlington

The NASCAR Xfinity Series returned to the historic Darlington Raceway for the Sport Clips Haircuts VFW Help A Hero 200. The race was 143 laps with the stages ending at laps 45 and 90. Daniel Hemric would start on the pole, still searching for win #1, and AJ Allmendinger would start in second. Brandon Jones won this race in a thriller a year ago.

Justin Allgaier led for most of the opening stage but lost a few positions at the end. Denny Hamlin passed Noah Gragson late in the stage for the lead. On the final lap, coming to the end of the stage, Hamlin tried to get around the #74 of Carson Ware and went spinning. This gave the stage win to Daniel Hemric. During pit stops, Sam Mayer’s right-front tire caught fire, ending his day for what has been a struggling season for the rookie. Denny Hamlin also ran into the #61 of David Starr on pit road, trying to make his pit stall.

At the start of stage 2, Justin Haley and AJ Allmendinger fought for the lead as Allmendinger took the lead shortly after. Brandon Jones made contact with teammate Daniel Hemric as Jones went spinning, hitting the inside wall coming off turn two to bring out the caution. This happened in the newly repaved turn two. The race resumed on lap 20. Noah Gragson would then take the lead as he was looking to claim the stage win, still looking for his first win of 2021. With five laps left in the stage, Allmendinger and Cindric went side-by-side in turns one and two, with Cindric slapping the wall. He was able to keep going. Many drivers fought for stage points among the likes of Daniel Hemric, Harrison Burton, Justin Allgaier, Austin Cindric, and AJ Allmendinger, but Noah Gragson would go on to win Stage Two at Darlington.

Denny Hamlin, the heavy favorite to win this race, took the lead early in the final stage. The sixth caution came out with 38 laps left in the race as Riley Herbst slammed into the back of Tommy Joe Martins, who had no idea Martins was there. Martins had a mechanical breakdown that caused him to slow up, with Herbst having no time to react. Brandon Jones went spinning with ten laps to go, as Denny Hamlin wasn’t too pleased as he was driving away with the lead. Hamlin and Gragson were side by side coming off of pit road, but Hamlin was hit with a pit road penalty, equipment over the wall too soon, and this would end his chances at a win. Landon Cassill and Daniel Hemric, who did not pit, restarted on the front row with five laps to go. Hemric had a better restart but Gragson flew by Hemric in turn two to take the lead. Then Hemric went spinning with four to go, as well as AJ Allmendinger having a sudden issue that took him out of contention. He had an issue and missed pit lane. There was debris on the backstretch from Hemric’s car and the caution came out with three to go, setting up a green-white-checkered. Gragson and Cindric led the field to the green flag in an overtime restart. Gragson had a huge launch at the restart as Harrison Burton moved up to second. Burton looked to the inside of Gragson in turns three and four but Gragson kept it coming to the white flag. Noah Gragson surged through to hold off Burton to win at Darlington! Gragson would then proceed to climb the fence with his crew, a throwback to celebrations from the likes of Tony Stewart. This comes after it was confirmed that Gragson will return to Jr Motorsports in 2022. Two races remain before the playoffs with stops at Richmond and Bristol.