Photo: Sean Gardner/Getty Images
Chaos was abundant Saturday in the Kansas Lottery 300, except for out front.
After taking the lead from Justin Allgaier on lap 41, John Hunter Nemechek led 154 of the race’s final 160 laps to win the regular season finale. It’s his sixth win of the season and second career win at Kansas Speedway. The win is also No. 200 for Toyota in the Xfinity series.
Nemechek continues his family’s success in the Sunflower state. Nemechek scored his first Xfinity win at Kansas in 2018 and his father, Joe, swept the Xfinity and Cup race in 2004.
The win is his fourth in the last 10 races.
“I just love Kansas,” Nemechek said. “We’ve been strong at pretty much every place this year.”
The story of the day was arguably Parker Kligerman. Coming into the race one point out of the final playoff spot, Kligerman ran in the top-10 all day, finishing fourth to advance over Riley Herbst.
“I’m so excited to have gone through this,” Kligerman said. “It just means the world. I didn’t think three or four years ago I’d ever be in a race car full time.”
On a restart in the second stage, Kligerman missed a shift and started to drop. Herbst, who restarted behind the No. 48, had nowhere to go and ran into the back of him, cutting his tire down in the process.
Herbst was unable to rebound from going laps down, causing him to miss the playoffs for the first time in his career.
“It doesn’t just start today,” Herbst said. “We had a bunch of mechanical failures. I shot myself in the foot a few races.”
Late in the race, the only person that had a shot to bump Kligerman was Brandon Jones. Jones, who was involved in two accidents in the race, needed to win the race to make the playoffs. He managed to get to second on the last run, which was all he would get, as Nemechek won by 7.521 seconds. Sheldon Creed, Kligerman and regular season champion Austin Hill rounded out the top-five.
Nemechek starts the playoffs with 49 playoff points. With three 1.5-mile tracks in the next five races, he has an opportunity to add even more of a cushion to advance to Phoenix.
“Each and every one of those points mean something,” Nemechek said. “Being able to have Las Vegas, Homestead and Texas just puts a smile on my face.”
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