NASCAR O'Reilly Auto Parts Series: Sports Illustrated Resorts 250 Highlights 🏁 NASCAR on FOX

Good evening from Lebanon, Tennessee. We are live Nashville Super Speedway tonight. It's the 16th race of the year for the O'Reilly Auto Parts Series. CW Sports welcomes you in to the Sports Illustrated Resorts 250. And drivers start your engines. Car takes the inside lane to his right. Austin Hill, 188 laps, 250 miles for the O'Reilly Auto Parts Series. Put the green flag in the air. Oh, in Music City. Really even start for the RCR teammates there. Can Austin Hill hang on the outside of Jesse Love here, one and two? Yeah, the inside usually tends to prevail here. Jesse's going to get clear on the two into the lead and set sail. You know, clean air, like we said, is super important. And just being able to manage the race from the front is so valuable in these cars, you can set your own pace and, you know, keep out front and hopefully hold on to that clean air as long as possible. And we just saw a good indication. The outside line is not there. Austin Hill got really loose off of four right there, allowing Corey Day to get further along up beside him. Now he's just fighting to probably try and get to the bottom here. If Corey Day is able to get by him. Nice break for Corey Day. Getting that inside lane when qualifying was rained out. Can he make it pay off? They continue side by side for the runner up position. Austin's being nice to him, they're running up the track, giving him a ton of space. These cars can be very sketchy when you get it on your door tight. And obviously, Austin, on lap two, isn't willing to push the limits. Thankfully, there's a couple of guys out there that might not be that nice, but he knows that there's not much to gain here on lap three. He goes way up there into one, which may work later with the momentum off of two. Now he goes to the inside. Yeah, the old crossover. Seventeen thought he had it underneath Corey Day. They're mixing it up back behind them as well. One is Carson Rompel, 18, William Suwalich on the move early. And you saw him hit that bump down there, Connor, in three and four. Just unsettles it so much. Look at the side draft chasing Corey Day up the track. Now tries to dive down into one. Yeah, that bump in three and four can be treacherous. But, you know, these guys have been side by side for the entire race so far. And when you start moving up too early into the run, you can really affect, you know, what your tires are doing. And that can really play in the speed you have late in the run. So you see Corey Day getting clear there, getting to the bottom, except quiet as this guy been tonight. I mean, gets the lead from the jump, drives away. We're not even talking about it. Yeah, I feel like in that commercial break, he had like a second lead. And now he's got four seconds and he can't even see second place. So, well, what was interesting is Corey was matching his lap time and even looking a little faster as you were referencing. And now he's just vaulted away in a big way. It's consistently been the fastest car on the racetrack the last few laps. It's insane. Wow. Oh, look at that. Oh, there's a drift. He hangs on. It's going to be a race for the lucky guys by now. The battle is for the free pass. Is it going to be Bearden? Is it going to be Cletus McFarlane? Jesse said, I'm giving you enough help. I can't help you. I got to go. I got to I got to try and get this trophy today. Agent Nashville. Yeah, I never realized how meaningful the lucky dog battle was until I started racing on Sunday. You race your heart out for that lucky dog. So it's it's fun to see Cletus up here working. Oh, he's going to wrap the bottom here, get inside of him. And now this for second rallied up behind Corey Day. Jesse Love has led more laps this year than he led last year when he claimed the title and trying to get that first victory of the campaign. Goes for a slide. Stage ends. And it's Jesse Love who takes the green and white checkered flag as the wheel and caution lights come on. It's like Logan Bearden is going to be the one that gets the free pass day. All Geyer Hill Larson, the top five for love. It's his third stage win of the campaign. He was trying. He was trying. You got to give it to him. Yep. The wheel and caution lights are on the same wheel and emergency lights and sirens you see on the safety vehicles here at the track are protecting first responders and communities all across America. Stage one complete progressive pit road is open. Here's Kim and Adam. You see that 17 of Corey Day pulling off about to make his stop. Top of your screen too tight. Second half of the run also tight to start. If he was freer, he felt like he could make lap time. You see the chassis adjustment too tight on the top lane. Also thought he might have a flat right rear. We'll check that when it comes off, Dylan. Jesse Love didn't want to be looser on entry because that hurts his arc. But center exit, he did want to be a little freer to make a track part air pressure change. Austin Hill said he was lacking right rear grip on entry and Justin All Geyer said, Don't change anything. But I need help on the short run and I'm too free on the long run. So I guess good luck if you're in your over street on fixing that. Hey, two teams been solid on pit road all year. All Geyer's got the number one pit stall. So he goes plus one. Waffle plus three status quo for Hill and the 17 going in the wrong direction. The top ten. And as of now, would have a chase position. We'll follow that story all night long and throughout the summer. Restart to begin our second stage. Love the control car inside lane and to his outside, Justin All Geyer. Look at Sammy Smith making it three wide down here to one. Jesse's going to get clear for the lead. Same as stage one. Obviously, that inside lane still prevails on the restarts. They're able to slide down in second side by side for third. Waffle in the 121 is Austin Hill. Right behind him is Larson. Corey Day there as well. Larson got right to his rear bumper, but just didn't unsettle him. You'd worry about if you're in Austin Hill's position, they're really precarious position on the outside of Waffle. There's those bumps on the exit of four, but was able to get away. It's not a race in the O'Reilly Auto Parts series. If the Hendrick Cars.com cars are not side by side and here, they're three wide day and Larson back there as we have a battle for the lead. All Geyer going inside a love. Great action inside the top ten at Nashville. Seven is on point. And Larson got really loose once again. Whoa. Off a turn for their gathers it up. Brent Cruz gets the back from him. He chased that thing up multiple times. Larson doesn't quit. He's not going away. He stays after the 88. And he's still loose. Oh, my gosh. I don't think they're happy with it. No, they're definitely not going to appreciate that radio, please. You're Sam Geyer got by. But make a mental note of this for the final stage. Being good on the back end of a run. Love is there. And looking inside for the race lead is we hit 15 laps to go. Stage two. Yeah, man, you get one lap car to get you slowed down, bogged up. And, you know, just he's there ready to pounce. That's what it takes at this track. It's very tough to pass when the leader doesn't have dirty air, traffic, whatever it may be. And Jesse Love gets the lead there. He's stuck behind him at this point. Jesse moves up when he needs to. Blocks Justin and doesn't get a little loose. Yeah, commentators curse. But yeah, he's been doing a great job holding on to this lead and keeping Justin behind him as you see them fighting for clean air. This is really impressive. I know we saw the speed and practice is just to get there. There's the side draft. Just as well. The most aggressive in the series at this. I thought there was going to be contact. You said it's seven back on point. Yeah, he's going to do a little slider line there and take Jesse's air away. He's going to have a run on exit. We'll see if he can get back to his left rear, which he does. There he goes. Turns back down. Use that side once again. Slide job. Yeah. Oh, yeah. And Justin's going to get the run back to the back. Crossover four to go on the stage. All guy are there. This race is awesome. This is great. It's all just to go all the way up trying to get away from him to do it this time, but he's still going to do it. And Jesse's running higher than I've seen anybody else run. And I didn't quite get the run he had last lap. A pair out front. Two seconds in front of third place, Carson Quapel going around Garrett Smithley in the zero, which he was already a lap down. Yeah, that was an awkward entry. I don't think Jesse saw Smithley there at the zero. And Justin moved down. It looked like almost like a block, but it was really to get to the bottom away from the zero there. And it gave Jesse just a really awkward entry off the rear of it. A big slide. He looked really out of the racetrack. Can't think he's very happy with the handling of the 88 as Justin went up the track. Oh, Ryan Ellis right there. Seven goes high, two low. One to go in the stage, side by side for the lead. All guy are in love. Yeah, some aggressive side drafting. Jesse's going to drive it down into the corner. Justin's going to follow him, though. Oh, that guy got away from he threw it on in there. Didn't quite have the positive momentum to clear him. Yeah, that was really smart by Justin, though. You knew Jesse was going to try and drive it up and clear him. And Justin drove it off there with him and turns 40 next Saturday. Justin Allgaier showing what a veteran he is, pulling out all the tricks to win stage two. Jesse love the second waffle. So it's cruise the top five. And the leaders coming to the Echo Park Restart Zone, Echo Park Automotive, where car buying is easier, better and happier. We're green again. It's actually just an Allgaier down there, nearly packing on. So while it's dancing, all guy are coming through. It's love gets the lead. Yeah, man, he knows how important that track position is and getting up there and put himself in a spot to go race against the two early in the run is is crucial. And sometimes you got to go through and get by your teammate there. Look at Cruz outside lane up to third best running position of the night. Parker. That was a super aggressive restart by Justin Allgaier. He had to do that and put Cruz in a compromising position up top. And he fended that off well. Maybe the loser in that was Quapel there falling to fourth, but he settled in. And I saw the 18, the 17 get pretty close to each other off of turn four, maybe a little bit of contact. Aggressive restart, but you said it. You have to go there. You had to take the opportunity. If you can put it out and does big time save. Eighty eight. What? That was like your drift and clean sideways the entire corner. And his right rear is probably not too happy. No, not at all. But that's Kyle Larson things right there. Look at this. Cruz got the third on the restart, looking for second. Never been here. Got the practice earlier today and doing what he does. And I've said it so many times, Connor. How much Brent reminds me of you last year. Stage one, stage two, you go to school. But all that knowledge to work in the final stage of the race. Yeah, man. And while they're racing hard side by side, Jesse is saying, thank you, guys. And he's driving away out front. But yeah, I wouldn't be surprised to see Brent get clear here soon. He's obviously a little bit better than seven than the seven early in the run. But yeah, the justice is not going to let him go easy. He knows how important it is to stay out front and and keep momentum going in the right direction. Starting that tonight would be good just to be free. And they're racing side by side. And Justin is not letting him have it. Early 18 are going to be 40 part series is all about various levels of experience. Justin finally gets clear there in a second and sees Jesse has gotten a little bit far out since the last time he focused on him on the door here and forces Justin into mistake. I could see it happening pretty soon. So, you know, you got to the inside. Now, he's got to throw a slider right here. He's just got to clear himself. How deep does he go? Oh, not not deep enough. Let's see. He's going to get clear still, though. There he goes. Now, does Justin pull the crossover once again? Not quite. They're ready for that. They need to put a spacer on it and get a spacer ready for the right rear. That's not good. But you know what? Everybody is going to have to make a pit stop, as I just said. The window opens, you know, sometime around lap one, twenty one, twenty five. So if you can ride this thing out, you know, mate, maybe you can make something out of it. But the risk you run and what they describe their need in a spacer, you can really damage those studs on that outside. And that's going to make this issue way worse than it is. So you might. He's the only one who can tell is inside that race for behind the wheel. That's just love. They should be tight, but we did have a right rear wheel loop. Yeah, so that that sounds like an issue on the actual studs themselves and the nuts actually backing off the wheel, because those pit crew guys, all of them have cameras and we'll see the pit stop here, but they can go back and watch the footage and see how many lugs they got on it. As we see here, it looks like you got at least four, at least four. Four is usually good, but suspect the camera on the helmet. And you know, the thing about that is if you have damaged it from having a loose wheel before the spacing wasn't quite correct, each one is then not going to see exactly correctly. And that's why they're saying we might need that spacer in the right rear, because they know it's not an issue. Brent Cruz, the new leader. And I got to tell you this. At 18, his growth, the situation they're in right now. Wow. He's been impressive. And one of the reasons he's out front problems for Jesse Love, who had been the strong card tonight, had the problems with the tire on that last cycle of stops coming down now under green, Dylan, 67 ago. Yeah, they wanted to put them in a much better spot than five or six laps ago. They're going to go over some spacers in the right rear. You see them doing that right there. So this will be a little bit of a slower stop and especially under green. You don't want that to hurt you too bad, but you got to make sure you get this thing to the finish, obviously, too. So go around here and get the left side change and just hope that it hangs on for the two. Right. If this goes green, as you mentioned, Dylan, this is within the window. But now you're seeing the spacers and how long this stop is having to be excruciating for Jesse Love. Fast race car to have this issue taken away from him. If it cycles through, we'll see how much he loses. But that's a very long stop. Yeah, he's done here all the way at the end car. Just air pressure on both these stops for tires and fuel. And you see leader Brent Cruz making this green. Don't touch it. No adjustments for the 19. As you see, the seven pedal since we'll cycle back to eight 18 year old Brent Cruz, who's leading or will be leading inside of 40 laps to go. This is cut that dusted a little bit here, even through some of this traffic from compared to where they were when we started the green flag cycle. Yeah. And that's something to mention, right? You know, you get that last and last chance to make an adjustment to make your car better for the end of the race. And, you know, you see that making a difference. And obviously, Justin got a good adjustment and he's able that that rhymed. Justin got a good adjustment. Well done. I don't even know. Obviously, it's starting to move back in the right direction. It's cycle for Cruz leading by one point eight seconds over Justin Allgaier lost a couple of seconds in the exchange. The we're going to take a look at our buddy Cletus McFarlane here coming to Pit Road. Yeah, that's it. That's the sound when you lock the rears. He said it was challenging. Come on. The guy that's going to be the all time leader in Jeremy Clements and behind him, Justin Allgaier, who's over 500. I mean, this is something here watching him race around these two. You see Justin move up there to the top, get some clean air. That's one thing I haven't seen Brent doing quite as much as I probably would like to see is when he gets here in dirty air. He's just following the fifty one down to the bottom. And Allgaier is in the dirty air. He lost the nose. Justin looking low for the race lead. Nineteen laps to go. Side by side for the top spot. Seven trying to come from behind. Cruz not going away. Seven shoots through. Justin Allgaier leads again at Nashville. Here's the crossover. He turned back down. Really smart move right there. Let Justin go. Gets back to the inside. He'll have the inside into three. Justin's going to drive it in with him, not make it easy. It's going to be close here off of four, but Brent's going to be able to wrap the bottom, get a good exit. We're going to be side by side, going back down the front straightaway. Allgaier wound up outside lane. Cruz not making it easy inside. It was a side rally, almost. Cars in front of him. That was tight. So deep right there. Trying to stay right adjusted. He fights back on the exit. Side by side once again. What does he learn to do different down in three here? Obviously, Justin's got a lot in his control on the outside here. If he wanted to, he could go down and put it on his door and get Brent loose. But he's given Brent a lot of room here and he's going to clear. Oh, not quite. Brent's going to hang on and get the side draft down the front straightaway. The 0-2 is Ryan Ellis. That's Clements out in front of him. Pulled away a little bit as these two race for the top position. Outside lane. Is he all clear this time? Yes, he is. Allgaier back in control. Yeah, Justin Allgaier goes back to the bottom here. He is. Brent's going to try and get a little bumper. He gave him a bumper. That's very much here. Well, he's 17 to go. Let it all hang out. Going for that first career victory. Justin's been pretty nice. We'll see if he maybe drives a little tighter this time into one. Might have to squeeze him back. He does go lower, but he's got him cleared. Brent's trying to pack air, get him loose into the off of two there. And he's going to get to his left rear and be inside into three. This is amazing. Tight racing. How tightly they're side drafting each corner, staying side by side. Would Justin have the momentum to exit here for? He does. Keep in mind, this has been Allgaier's playground. I mean, he's got an incredible stat sheet here. Brent Cruz had never seen the place before practice today. Allgaier back to the white flag. One to go sponsored by Credit One Bank for what's ahead. Driver seven gets a stage victory, going to lead 50 laps. It's all said and done. He's going to put an exclamation point on his big advantage out front with an off weekend coming. Such an impressive night for Justin and the seven team. Justin Allgaier playing out. He gets his third victory in Music City. Much justice paid attention. It was like, hey, you've had your wife and kids in victory lane. But now you can get your mom and dad in victory lane. That's a special one. Justin Allgaier in the Sports Illustrated Resorts, 250. Which is himself. I know he didn't just immediately take over from there, but he stayed in the game and doing what he could. I thought it was safer, but oh, the bow. That's awesome.