Ryan Truex Goes Back-to-Back at Dover

Both Ryan Truex and his older brother Martin always considered Dover to be their home track, closest to their hometown of Mayetta, New Jersey. This is also the same track where Martin Truex Jr got his first career Cup Series win back in 2007. Last season, both Truex brothers swept the Dover weekend with Ryan getting his first career Xfinity Series win, and Martin winning the next day.

This time around, Ryan Truex was able to make the move for the lead in an overtime restart to grab his second career Xfinity Series win. Truex lined up alongside 20-year-old rookie Carson Kvapil on the final restart and pulled away coming to the white flag, where an accident would cause the race to end under yellow. 

“I can’t believe it, our car was just good at the end when it mattered, I was so loose all day,” said Truex after the race. “Shout out to Carson, what an amazing run for what, his second race. I felt a little bad running him up the hill, but you’ve got to take these things when you can.”

“I think I held my breath the last two laps. Love these fans. Love this track.”

Carson Kvapil, the son of former NASCAR driver Travis Kvapil, had a great day overall driving the No. 88 for JR Motorsports. He made his debut at Martinsville and placed fourth in that race, showcasing an impressive start for the young racer. 

“This is pretty incredible,” Kvapil said. “Definitely felt like we had a fast car going into the day, but to be competing for the win on a green-white-checkered is pretty amazing. We’ve been in this situation before just not quite at this level.”

Towards the end of the race, it looked like it was a battle between former teammates. Austin Hill of Richard Childress Racing and Sheldon Creed, now with Joe Gibbs Racing, restarted with 11 laps to go side-by-side and battled for the lead. However, Kvapil was able to go three-wide and take the lead with eight laps to go.

Cole Custer led a race-high 95 of the 208 laps and looked to be the one to beat until pitting after a red flag for rain. He restarted at the tail end of the field but was able to rally to a fifth-place finish.

Sam Mayer finished third, with Sheldon Creed and Cole Custer finishing fourth and fifth. AJ Allmendinger, Chandler Smith, Kyle Weatherman, Anthony Alfredo, and Parker Retzlaff rounded out the top ten. For Alfredo, that ninth-place finish was huge for the No. 5 team, as he took home the final $100,000 Dash 4 Cash bonus. 

“Really coming into this race, that was our motivation, it wasn’t something to just be a part of, yeah, I mean this was huge,” Alfredo said. “You don’t understand how small our budget is compared to these bigger teams. People overlook it because we’ve been running so well. The last three weeks we’ve been running top 10, and everyone asks, ‘Who’s your alliance with?’”

“… Coming into this race we knew if we could pull it off, we could invest in our team to be that much better.”

Last week’s winner Jesse Love finished two laps down in 24th, after having contact with Ryan Truex’s No. 20 Toyota, then having to pit for a flat tire on lap 102. 

The Xfinity Series is back in action on May 11^th from Darlington Raceway at 1:30 pm EST.