Kansas Lottery 300 Race Results

Aric Almirola plays spoiler, wins Xfinity Playoffs opener at Kansas

Aric Almirola surged to victory in Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series Playoffs opener at Kansas Speedway, bypassing Cole Custer in the 197th of 200 laps and denying the circuit’s postseason hopefuls early advancement.

Almirola’s No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota led 16 of the 200 laps in the Kansas Lottery 300. His second win of the season in a part-time role was his first at the 1.5-mile Kansas City track and the sixth of his Xfinity Series career.

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Custer, the defending series champion, ended as the runner-up in the No. 00 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford, 0.660 seconds behind at the checkered flag. Chandler Smith placed third, with rookie Connor Zilisch fourth and Sheldon Creed completing the top five.

A handful of playoff-eligible drivers found trouble in the 300-miler, most notably top-seeded Justin Allgaier. The 38-year-old veteran lost control exiting the second turn on the 70th lap during a Stage 2 restart, then made heavy contact with the inside retaining wall with the front of his No. 7 JR Motorsports Chevrolet. He limped along in an effort to continue, but a second wall scrape ended his day early with a 36th-place finish in the 38-car field.

Sammy Smith, a teammate of Allgaier’s at JRM, also endured a pair of wall brushes in Stage 1, and title hopefuls Austin Hill and Riley Herbst came together at the end of Stage 2, with Herbst taking the worst of their contact.

The Xfinity Series will continue the Round of 12 next Saturday at Talladega Superspeedway (4 p.m. ET, The CW, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

This story will be updated.