William Byron earned his first NASCAR Xfinity Series title as a rookie on Saturday when he held off Elliott Sadler in a late race duel.  Cole Custer ran away with the race win, but the real story was the battle for 3rd place, which was the battle for the title.  Ryan Preece, a part time driver was running in 3rd, and Byron and Sadler were right on his tail.  Sadler and Preece made contact with 6 laps to go, and Sadler hit the wall as Preece almost spun out.  Byron pulled away and never looked back.  I don’t think I breathed the last 20 laps,” Byron said after climbing from his car. “It’s incredible. (Elliott Sadler) raced me clean, and we just raced hard for it.  I just have to thank this team.  This is awesome … I’ve just got to thank God for giving me this platform to perform.”

Byron won a series-leading 4 races this season.  He will move to the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series and drive the famed #24 for Hendrick Motorsports as Kasey Kahne leaves Hendrick Motorsports.  For Sadler, it was the 4th time he’s finished as the runner-up for the Xfinity Series title.  “He cost us a championship, and he’s not even racing anybody,” Sadler said about Preece.  “If you’re going to race people like that in this sport, you’re not gonna make it very far.  You gotta have respect.  It’s definitely a shame to be that close and not pull it off.  I appreciate my race team.  I let them down tonight.  I should’ve took care of business when I got to Ryan.”  “To be honest with you, if there’s a person you don’t want to cost a championship to, it’s Elliott Sadler,” said Preece. “You know, I’m just trying to do team orders here. I was racing for an owner championship. Yeah, we weren’t racing for the win right there, but we were still racing the 9 (Byron). It’s not where I want to be right there. Obviously, I hate it, but I can’t take it back.”

Cole Custer won the race by over 15 seconds to take his first career Xfinity Series win.  “We knew we were going be really good this weekend, but our Haas Automation Mustang was unreal,” Custer said. “We really wanted to have a good showing at Ford Championship Weekend.  Even though we weren’t in it (the Championship 4), we wanted to win.” Custer dominated the race, leading 182 of the 200 laps, and earned a perfect 150.0 driver rating, which was the only time that occurred this season.

Credit to www.nascar.com

Written on November 28,2017