Gragson Wins 4th in a Row, Reddick Earns 3rd Career win at Texas

The Playoffs are now officially underway for the NASCAR Xfinity Series, while the Round of 12 began for the NASCAR Cup Series, both taking place at Texas Motor Speedway.

Noah Gragson has become the new Mr. September after winning his fourth race in a row at Texas, tying the most won in a row all-time in the Xfinity Series, tied with Sam Ard who did it back in 1983. This locks Gragson into the Round of 8 for the Xfinity playoffs and this makes it where Gragson has won every Xfinity Series race in the month of September.

“This No. 9 team, man, they’re on fire and all you fans, you keep us motivated,’’ Gragson said in his post-race interview. “We’re gonna come back and win more races for you. You guys are awesome and we appreciate you. Thanks for coming out.

“Just this team, I mean the pit crew’s done awesome and our car was as fast as Xfinity internet all day and I’m just so thankful for the opportunity.

Gragson led a race-high 85 of 200 laps and held off fellow playoff contenders Austin Hill and Ty Gibbs to earn his seventh win of the season. This race showed eight of the playoff drivers finishing in the top ten, including Ty Gibbs finishing third, AJ Allmendinger in fourth, Riley Herbst finishing in fifth, Josh Berry sixth, non-playoff driver Sheldon Creed in seventh, Josh Berry eighth, Ryan Sieg ninth, and non-playoff driver C.J. McLaughlin finishing in tenth- his first career top ten.

Two multi-car accidents occurred that shook up implications for the playoff contenders, making their days even busier than usual. Allmendinger suffered damage at one point but did come back to finish in third.

Riley Herbst (-1), Daniel Hemric (-8), Brandon Jones (-13), and Jeremy Clements (-29) who ended up behind the wall with an engine issue, now find themselves in the bottom four of the playoff standings going to Talladega.

Moving over to the NASCAR Cup Series, it was an eventful race with many drivers suffering tire issues all race long, but for one Tyler Reddick, he earned his third career Cup Series win and third win of the season, first on an oval, at the end of the day.

“We had a lot of issues today, I’m not going to lie,” Reddick said with a smile, “Every time we’ve had a strong car we’ve been bit by something.”

Reddick held off Joey Logano of Team Penske in the closing laps to win the AutoTrader EchoPark Automotive 500.

“This is a tough race, 500 miles here is not an easy feat and I know it wasn’t easy on you,’’ Reddick said in his post-race interview. “So great to win here in a Cup car, been close here a couple of times.’’

Despite that a current playoff driver has yet to win in the playoffs, there was no shortage of drama in the race. Playoff contenders William Byron and Denny Hamlin had a late run-in in the race when Byron said he felt Hamlin run him up on track, causing him to hit the turn two wall and receive damage out of it. In response, he bumped Hamlin’s No. 11 Toyota under caution, sending Hamlin spinning into the infield.

“It was really hard contact,’’ Byron said of the incident that put his car in the wall, adding, “I didn’t mean to spin him out over there, but obviously I’m pissed off and not going to get run like that. We’ve always raced together so well so I don’t know what it was all about. I went to go show my displeasure. Didn’t mean to hit him and spin him out. I’m just not going to get run like that. There’s really no reason. We were running second and third at the time, I think.’’

“I don’t think we touched but obviously he sent us through the infield under caution,’’ Denny Hamlin said. “I keep hearing these guys and I’ll just add it to the list, guys that when I get a chance, they’re going to get it. It just works itself out. We’ll be racing each other at some point. He’ll lose a lot of spots because he’s racing me.”

Many playoff contenders ran into issues during the race, including Chase Elliott and Christopher Bell. Both drivers, along with others like Kevin Harvick and Martin Truex Jr, suffered tired issues that eliminated themselves from contention to win.

“Something came apart, I could hear it flapping on the right rear, so if it wasn’t down, it was certainly coming apart,’’ Elliott said after wrecking out and finishing 32nd.

“It’s not a great position to be in for sure, but it is what it is now. I hate it for our No. 9 NAPA Auto Parts Chevrolet team. We were actually decent here for once, and that was nice while it lasted. We’ll go to Talladega and try to survive over there, get a win next week, and go on down the road.”

“Very disappointing weekend and I was feeling optimistic when they dropped the green flag,’’ Christopher Bell said, “It makes our decision easy on how to play Talladega. We were hoping to come out of here good and be able to ride around and just survive Talladega. We are going to have to race and get some stage points and be up front all day.’’

Chase Briscoe, Austin Cindric, Christopher Bell, and Alex Bowman currently sit below the cutline heading into Talladega and The Roval.

There was a scary moment for Cody Ware, as he was later checked and released from the infield care center, when he suffered a hard hit in turn four, then coming down with being unable to stop, he barely missed an opening in pit road, then finally coming to a stop. RWR representative Robby Benton said that the X-rays at the track showed no fractures and added that he had some discomfort in one of his ankles.

Both Cup, Xfinity, as well as the Truck Series, will head next to Talladega Superspeedway, where one year ago all three races saw first-time winners.