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Myatt Snider notched his first career Xfinity Series victory when he held off Tyler Reddick to win the Contender Boats 250 at Homestead-Miami Speedway Saturday evening. He is the third different driver to find the winner’s circle this year.
Leading just five laps overall, Snider got the jump on the field in the second overtime, and no one could catch him. The win locks him into the Xfinity Series playoffs.
Rounding out the top 5 were Reddick, Brandon Jones, Daniel Hemric, and Jeb Burton.
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How Myatt Snider won the Contender Boats 250
The heartbreak of the race was suffered by Noah Gragson, who led a race-high 63 laps and was cruising to his third career Xfinity Series win until his luck ran out.
Gragson had a battle on his hands, trying to fend off Brett Moffitt, who eventually scraped the wall, sending him to the pits for new tires. That gave Gragson more than a five-second lead, and he was riding the high line to victory when David Starr had a tire go down and slid up in front of Gragson, leaving his No. 9 nowhere to go.
That sent the race into overtime, and in the scramble to take the lead, AJ Allmendinger tried to make a bold move on the inside. Jeremy Clements was right behind and tapped the No. 16 in the rear end, getting Allmendinger loose. He managed to get his car under control, but the yellow flag had waved by then.
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The second overtime had race leader Tyler Reddick and Myatt Snider on the front row, but right behind was Austin Cindric, who had a win and a second in two races so far. He would get shuffled back to sixth as Myatt Snider took control for his first victory since 2017, when he was racing in the CARS Late Model Stock Tour.
“I feel like we probably deserved to be a top 5 car, and maybe if we made some different decisions there on the choose, who knows, we maybe would have given ourselves a better shot to win the race in our PPG Ford Mustang,” Cindric said after the race. “At the same time, I think we did a pretty good job on strategy. All in all, it was an okay day. We definitely learned a lot, and we tried to make a short-run car into a long-run car, and we probably just hurt ourselves for when the sun went down. Lesson learned there and definitely some good info moving forward in the season.”
The choose is where drivers can select which lane they want to be on a restart.
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Xfinity Series Contender Boats 250 notes
Tire carrier Josh Shipplett was injured when Daniel Hemric turned late into his pit stall during the first caution, hitting him. He fell backward, losing control of two tires that rolled into the path of other cars coming in for service. Shipplett complained about pain in his right side, and was taken to the care center.
"First off, I’m so sorry," said Hemric. "Those are Denny’s (Hamlin) guys for tomorrow and I could hear Chris Gabehart, their crew chief for tomorrow, saying take care of his guys. I did not do that today. It was my first time coming down pit road in these cars and I fully underestimated how much front brake I had. Completely on me.
Former NTT IndyCar Series driver Santino Ferrucci made his stock car debut in the No. 26 Toyota Supra for Sam Hunt Racing. After the green flag start to Stage 2, he scraped the wall at Lap 49 and fell back to P35, losing 19 spots. The 22-year old finished P31.
