RELATED: Full race results from Kentucky
SPARTA, Ky. -- Making his first career NASCAR XFINITY Series start, Matt Tifft put together quite the debut outing in the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota in the VisitMyrtleBeach.com 300 at Kentucky Speedway last Saturday night.
Tifft scored a 10th-place finish, piloting a car that has been driven this year by several drivers, including NASCAR Sprint Cup Series stars and Chase contenders Denny Hamlin and Matt Kenseth as well as Erik Jones.
"We'd like to finish a little bit better, but awesome run all the way around," Tifft told NASCAR.com on pit road after the race. "Made some real good changes throughout the race and Wheels (crew chief Mike Wheeler) did a good job getting us up to where we needed to be with some strategy and some tire calls there. Big learning experience and it was cool."
Tifft started the race 16th and made some steady gains throughout the night as he cracked the top 10 on Lap 150. A two-tire call by Wheeler during a pit stop under caution on Lap 169 had Tifft leave pit road running in third. He was in second place on Lap 180, but had some problems on a few late-race restarts.
On the Lap 188 restart, Tifft didn't get a good jump and as a result, jammed up the bottom line but was able to hang on and run in third place. On the Lap 193 restart, the second-to-last restart of the race, he got loose and dropped back a bit, just outside the top 10. The second-to-last restart was especially costly in terms of positioning.
"We got down into Turn 1 and I had one car in the left rear and one car in the right rear and as soon as we got down in, just whoever was in the left rear just got me loose enough that when the cars came around the outside lane, it was just enough to take the air off the spoiler. Hated that we couldn't keep up there."
For a JGR program that has the young talents of Jones and Daniel Suarez in the pipeline, Tifft's performance served notice that he shouldn't be forgotten as one to watch going forward.
One unique aspect of Tifft's start was that his No. 20 Toyota has UNC-Charlotte as the primary sponsor. The 19-year-old attends the school as a business management major.
Now, Tifft turns his attention towards his next NASCAR event, which will come this weekend in the Camping World Truck Series in the Rhino Linings 350 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway (Oct. 3, FS1, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Tifft will pilot the No. 51 Toyota for Kyle Busch Motorsports in the race.
"I haven't been there before. It will definitely be good to go there with some positive momentum and do well there, too."
Tifft has made nine starts in the Truck Series this season with four top 10s. His best finishes on the season have been eighth-place showings at Charlotte Motor Speedway (in May) and Pocono Raceway (in August). Tifft is also slated to compete in Truck Series events at Talladega Superspeedway and Phoenix International Raceway later this year.