The 2024 Credit One NASCAR Amex Credit Card 300 NASCAR XFINITY Series qualifying results feature the drivers' lap times, positions, and who secured pole position at Homestead Miami Speedway.
Saturday, October 26th, 2024
Homestead Miami Speedway, Homestead, FL
Kaulig Racing’s A.J. Allmendinger proved to be a man of fine timing scoring his first win of the season in last week’s Playoff race at Las Vegas to earn an automatic bid into the Championship finale Nov. 9 at Phoenix Raceway.
The last two seasons, Playoff drivers have similarly celebrated their ticket to contend for the title at Homestead-Miami Speedway, where the NASCAR Xfinity Series Credit One NASCAR AMEX Credit Card 300 is the second half of a Saturday double-header (3:30 p.m. ET on The CW, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Two of the eight Playoff drivers have victories at Homestead-Miami, including defending race winner Sam Mayer and 2017 race winner Cole Custer. A win for either would be well-timed with only two races (at Homestead and then Martinsville, Va. next week) to decide which four drivers are championship eligible for the Phoenix race.
JR Motorsports’ veteran Justin Allgaier currently leads the points standings with a healthy 32-point advantage atop the four-driver cutoff line. The defending series champion Custer is next, 16 points to the good and Joe Gibbs Racing’s Chandler Smith holds that final transfer position by a slim eight-points over Richard Childress Racing’s Austin Hill.
Hill’s RCR rookie teammate Jesse Love is 13 points below Chandler Smith. JR Motorsports’ teammates Mayer and Sammy Smith are 23 and 53 points back, respectively.
Of note, Allgaier’s points position now may prove especially helpful for the perennial championship contender considering he has only three top-10 finishes in 15 starts at the 1.5-mile Homestead-Miami oval. His best career finish is sixth back in 2016. His only top-10 since then was a 10th place in 2022.
On the flip side, Hill has a perfect two-for-two top-10 showing at Homestead-Miami, including fourth place last year. Mayer is the defending winner and Sammy Smith started fifth and finished 10th last year in his only previous start at the track. This will be the 19-year-old rookie Love’s first Homestead race.
Practice for the race is at 4:05 p.m. ET on Friday with qualifying following at 4:40 p.m. ET – both sessions available to watch on the NBC Sports App.
An emotional Austin Hill climbed out of his No. 21 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet on the Homestead-Miami Speedway frontstretch to celebrate one of the most significant race wins of his burgeoning career – claiming the Credit One NASCAR AMEX Credit Card 300 trophy Saturday and securing one of four positions to race for a trophy in the Nov. 9 series championship finale.
Hill – who also swept both of the race’s stage wins – took the lead from Stewart-Haas Racing’s Cole Custer with 11 laps remaining Saturday evening at the 1.5-mile South Florida track and raced off to a healthy 3.045-second win over the fellow Playoff driver and reigning series champion Custer.
It was the fourth win of the season for Hill and 10th of this career. But importantly, it is the first time the 30-year-old Georgia native will have a chance to race for the championship trophy after multi-win seasons the last three years.
“I worked so hard for this, a lot of people doubt me but I wake up every day to prove them wrong,” Hill said. “I deserve to be here and I deserve to race for a championship. This 21-team deserves it just as much as I do. They work their [butts] off each and every day just like I do. I’ve got to give it up to those guys. They gave me a hell of a car.
“I can honestly say I’ve never cried coming to the start-finish line, but I had to get my emotions together going into Turn 1 after the checkered, all the hard work and dedication that goes into this. I don’t think everyone’s going to understand what this means for me, for my family and for [sponsor] Bennett. … I had to be on it today.
Pausing to take it in, he added, “This is amazing. To be able to go the Final Four. I’ve worked so hard at this and my dreams came true.”
With his win and A.J. Allmendinger’s victory last week at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, now only two positions remain for the title chase with one more race remaining – at the Martinsville (Va.) Speedway half-miler next week – to establish the championship foursome.
JR Motorsports driver Justin Allgaier – who only had three previous top-10 finishes at Homestead – took the checkered flag in eighth place which was good enough to keep the driver of the No. 7 JRM Chevrolet with the points lead in third place should he need that to advance to the championship race.
Custer, whose No. 00 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford led a race best 87 of the 200 laps, is now on that fourth-place cutoff line with a 28-point advantage over Saturday’s race pole-winner Chandler Smith. Smith, finished 13th and as with the bottom four ranked drivers is essentially in a must-win situation next weekend.
Hill’s rookie teammate Jesse Love ran up front much of the day and finished fourth. He’s now sixth in the points standings – 35 points below Custer.
“It just shows you how good you have to be to get in the Championship Four,” Love said, noting of the Phoenix finale, “I feel like if we could get there we have a shot to win.”
JR Motorsports teammates Sam Mayer and Sammy Smith finished ninth and 22nd, respectively and find themselves in a similar must-win situation to Chandler Smith and Love next week at Martinsville.
Joe Gibbs Racing’s Aric Almirola finished third Saturday behind the Playoff drivers, with Love and JGR’s Sheldon Creed rounding out the top-five. Custer’s SHR teammate Riley Herbst, RSS Racing’s Ryan Sieg, Allgaier, Mayer and last week’s race winner Allmendinger completed the top-10.
Of note, 18-year-old William Sawalich finished 24th in his much-anticipated Xfinity Series debut.
The NASCAR Xfinity Series moves to the Martinsville (Va.) Speedway half-miler next week for Saturday’s National Debt Relief 200 (4 p.m. ET on The CW, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Allgaier is the defending race winner. Almirola won at the track this Spring.
GRP | RNK | # | DRIVER | TEAM | MAKE | TME | SPD | LAP # | # LAPS | BHND |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 1 | 81 | Chandler Smith | Joe Gibbs Racing | Toyota | 33.067 | 163.305 | 1 | 1 | 0.000 |
1 | 2 | 18 | Sheldon Creed | Joe Gibbs Racing | Toyota | 33.165 | 162.822 | 1 | 1 | 0.098 |
1 | 3 | 20 | Aric Almirola | Joe Gibbs Racing | Toyota | 33.180 | 162.749 | 1 | 1 | 0.113 |
1 | 4 | 00 | Cole Custer | Stewart Haas Racing | Ford | 33.219 | 162.558 | 1 | 1 | 0.152 |
1 | 5 | 7 | Justin Allgaier | JR Motorsports | Chevrolet | 33.220 | 162.553 | 1 | 1 | 0.153 |
1 | 6 | 16 | AJ Allmendinger | Kaulig Racing | Chevrolet | 33.298 | 162.172 | 1 | 1 | 0.231 |
1 | 7 | 48 | Parker Kligerman | Big Machine Racing | Chevrolet | 33.357 | 161.885 | 1 | 1 | 0.290 |
1 | 8 | 98 | Riley Herbst | Stewart Haas Racing | Ford | 33.419 | 161.585 | 1 | 1 | 0.352 |
1 | 9 | 1 | Sam Mayer | JR Motorsports | Chevrolet | 33.461 | 161.382 | 1 | 1 | 0.394 |
1 | 10 | 8 | Sammy Smith | JR Motorsports | Chevrolet | 33.473 | 161.324 | 1 | 1 | 0.406 |
1 | 11 | 31 | Parker Retzlaff | Jordan Anderson Racing | Chevrolet | 33.476 | 161.310 | 1 | 1 | 0.409 |
1 | 12 | 19 | William Sawalich | Joe Gibbs Racing | Toyota | 33.482 | 161.281 | 1 | 1 | 0.415 |
1 | 13 | 88 | Connor Zilisch | JR Motorsports | Chevrolet | 33.495 | 161.218 | 1 | 1 | 0.428 |
1 | 14 | 2 | Jesse Love | Richard Childress Racing | Chevrolet | 33.532 | 161.040 | 1 | 1 | 0.465 |
1 | 15 | 27 | Jeb Burton | Jordan Anderson Racing | Chevrolet | 33.557 | 160.920 | 1 | 1 | 0.490 |
1 | 16 | 21 | Austin Hill | Richard Childress Racing | Chevrolet | 33.562 | 160.896 | 1 | 1 | 0.495 |
1 | 17 | 28 | Ryan Sieg | RSS Racing | Ford | 33.628 | 160.580 | 1 | 1 | 0.561 |
1 | 18 | 5 | Anthony Alfredo | Our Motorsports | Chevrolet | 33.749 | 160.005 | 1 | 1 | 0.682 |
1 | 19 | 44 | Brennan Poole | Alpha Prime Racing | Chevrolet | 33.801 | 159.759 | 1 | 1 | 0.734 |
1 | 20 | 9 | Brandon Jones | JR Motorsports | Chevrolet | 33.827 | 159.636 | 1 | 1 | 0.760 |
1 | 21 | 91 | Kyle Weatherman | DGM Racing | Chevrolet | 33.833 | 159.607 | 1 | 1 | 0.766 |
1 | 22 | 26 | Ryan Truex | Sam Hunt Racing | Toyota | 33.846 | 159.546 | 1 | 1 | 0.779 |
1 | 23 | 51 | Jeremy Clements | Jeremy Clements Racing | Chevrolet | 33.848 | 159.537 | 1 | 1 | 0.781 |
1 | 24 | 11 | Josh Williams | Kaulig Racing | Chevrolet | 33.900 | 159.292 | 1 | 1 | 0.833 |
1 | 25 | 97 | Shane van Gisbergen | Kaulig Racing | Chevrolet | 34.141 | 158.168 | 1 | 1 | 1.074 |
1 | 26 | 42 | Leland Honeyman Jr | Young's Motorsports | Chevrolet | 34.149 | 158.131 | 1 | 1 | 1.082 |
1 | 27 | 39 | Kyle Sieg | RSS Racing | Ford | 34.221 | 157.798 | 1 | 1 | 1.154 |
1 | 28 | 07 | Brad Perez | SS-Green Light Racing | Chevrolet | 34.283 | 157.512 | 1 | 1 | 1.216 |
1 | 29 | 74 | Dawson Cram | Mike Harmon Racing | Chevrolet | 34.289 | 157.485 | 1 | 1 | 1.222 |
1 | 30 | 15 | Dylan Lupton | AM Racing | Ford | 34.465 | 156.681 | 1 | 1 | 1.398 |
1 | 31 | 43 | Ryan Ellis | Alpha Prime Racing | Chevrolet | 34.474 | 156.640 | 1 | 1 | 1.407 |
1 | 32 | 45 | Mason Maggio | Alpha Prime Racing | Chevrolet | 34.623 | 155.966 | 1 | 1 | 1.556 |
1 | 33 | 92 | Nick Leitz | DGM Racing | Chevrolet | 34.629 | 155.939 | 1 | 1 | 1.562 |
1 | 34 | 14 | Austin Green | SS-Green Light Racing | Chevrolet | 34.641 | 155.885 | 1 | 1 | 1.574 |
1 | 35 | 29 | Blaine Perkins | RSS Racing | Ford | 34.752 | 155.387 | 1 | 1 | 1.685 |
1 | 36 | 53 | Thomas Annunziata | Joey Gase Motorsports | Chevrolet | 35.076 | 153.951 | 1 | 1 | 2.009 |
1 | 37 | 35 | Armani Williams | Joey Gase Motorsports | Ford | 37.080 | 145.631 | 1 | 1 | 4.013 |
1 | 38 | 38 | Matt DiBenedetto | RSS Racing | Ford | 0.000 | 0.000 | 0 | 0 | 33.067 |