Taylor Gray holds back Sheldon Creed to win NASCAR O'Reilly race at Kansas

Taylor Gray is now a two-time race winner in the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series. Driving the No. 54 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota, he held off a charging Sheldon Creed in the No. 00 Haas Factory Team Chevrolet as Kansas Speedway.

“First of all, thank you to everyone at Joe Gibbs Racing,” said Gray in Victory Lane. “How about (crew chief) Jason Ratcliffe? That pit call was awesome. I knew we had a car capable of winning. I thought the No. 20 (Jones) was a little better than us before the green-flag cycle, but you just have to stay locked in.

“Jason made a really good adjustment on the car, a really good pit call, and got us the clean air. I can’t thank everybody enough. It’s been a long start to the year, man. Not that we’re not bringing speed to the race track, but things just haven’t gone our way. So it’s nice to finally be able to close one out.”

Justin Allgaier finished third, Jesse Love fourth, and Brent Crews fifth. William Byron, Cole Custer, Brandon Jones, Sam Mayer, and Ryan Sieg filled out the remainder of the top ten.

While he missed out on the win, Creed did earn the $100,000 Dash4Cash bonus, beating Allgaier, Crews, and Carson Kvapil for that prize. However, Allgaier now leads Creed by 131 points in the championship standings.

Stage 1

Kvapil led the race from pole position, but Day quickly moved into the race lead. While battling in the middle of a three-wide situation on the third lap, Kvapil got hit by teammate William Byron. He slammed the wall and went airborne, tumbling down the backstretch in a dramatic rollover crash.

The incident triggered a 12-minute red flag. After racing resumed, Day barely held on against Allgaier as they raced to the a competition caution. Luke Baldwin’s race was also over after a separate incident that happened just as the Kvapil crash was unfolding.

Jones took over the lead on pit road, and held it through the ensuing restart. Battling for a spot inside the top ten, things got messy between RCR teammates. Hill was to the inside of Love and ended up spinning sideways after being put in a bad aero spot. William Sawalich then slammed into Hill, severely damaging both cars. Hill was none too pleased with Love, saying as much after being released from the infield care center.

This caution came just before the end of the stage, so there was a split strategy with Love leading one group of cars onto pit road after the run-in with his teammate.

Jones held on to win Stage 1 over Day, Allgaier, Love, Alfredo, Tay. Gray, Creed, Crews, J. Burton, and Byron.

Stage 2

There was a new group of cars at the front as multiple strategies played out with Alfredo leading the way. After a chaotic restart, Byron took the lead, but Jones was already right with him despite restarting back around seventh. He immediately went to the inside of Byron, and was able to clear him within a lap.

The next caution was for Alfredo, who cut a right-front tire down and hit the wall. During the yellow, both Austin Green and Blake Lothian fell out of the race with mechanical issues.

Jones went on to sweep the stages, winning Stage 2 over Creed, Allgaier, Love, Day, S. Smith, Tay. Gray, H. Burton, Mayer, and Thompson.

Stage 3

On the restart, Creed and Tay. Gray took Jones three-wide for the lead, but were unable to complete the pass.

Back in the pack, Day got into Smith, triggering an accident that damaged both cars. On the following restart, Creed actually did manage to take the lead from Jones.

What followed was the longest green-flag run of the day, with a round of green-flag stops kicking off with about 55 laps to go.

Gray, who opted to short-pit, jumped both Creed and Jones through that cycle of stops. Unfortunately for Jones, his incredible day went awry as the team was handed a pass-through penalty for an uncontrolled tire during their stop.

Gray held a three-second advantage over Creed after pitting four laps earlier than the Haas driver.

However, Creed steadily closed the gap, and got to within half-a-second at one point as they battled through traffic, but he never quite got close enough.

NASCAR O’Reilly Kansas results

1	54	Taylor Gray	Toyota	200	2:33’54.897		48
2	00	Sheldon Creed	Chevrolet	200	2:33’55.615	0.718	48
3	7	Justin Allgaier	Chevrolet	200	2:33’56.751	1.854
4	2	Jesse Love	Chevrolet	200	2:34’05.004	10.107	1
5	19	Brent Crews	Toyota	200	2:34’06.060	11.163
6	88	William Byron	Chevrolet	200	2:34’13.063	18.166	1
7	0	Cole Custer	Chevrolet	200	2:34’15.605	20.708
8	20	Brandon Jones	Toyota	200	2:34’17.082	22.185	67
9	41	Sam Mayer	Chevrolet	200	2:34’20.641	25.744
10	39	Ryan Sieg	Chevrolet	200	2:34’26.679	31.782	3
11	26	Dean Thompson	Toyota	199	2:34’01.176	1 Lap
12	17	Corey Day	Chevrolet	199	2:34’09.593	1 Lap	26
13	27	Jeb Burton	Chevrolet	199	2:34’10.779	1 Lap
14	48	Patrick Staropoli	Chevrolet	199	2:34’11.033	1 Lap
15	51	Jeremy Clements	Chevrolet	199	2:34’14.582	1 Lap
16	8	Sammy Smith	Chevrolet	199	2:34’26.520	1 Lap
17	92	Josh Williams	Chevrolet	199	2:34’29.134	1 Lap
18	45	Lavar Scott	Chevrolet	198	2:33’57.553	2 Laps
19	44	Brennan Poole	Chevrolet	198	2:33’58.511	2 Laps
20	18	William Sawalich	Toyota	198	2:34’06.964	2 Laps
21	32	Rajah Caruth	Chevrolet	198	2:34’08.168	2 Laps
22	02	Ryan Ellis	Chevrolet	198	2:34’08.630	2 Laps
23	31	Blaine Perkins	Chevrolet	198	2:34’28.787	2 Laps
24	42	Nathan Byrd	Chevrolet	197	2:33’57.828	3 Laps
25	28	Kyle Sieg	Chevrolet	197	2:34’16.739	3 Laps
26	07	Josh Bilicki	Chevrolet	196	2:34’24.311	4 Laps
27	55	Joey Gase	Chevrolet	194	2:32’37.659	6 Laps
28	24	Harrison Burton	Toyota	190	2:34’21.162	10 Laps
29	74	Dawson Cram	Chevrolet	120	1:50’01.045	80 Laps		Engine
30	96	Anthony Alfredo	Chevrolet	65	1:01’17.200	135 Laps	6	Accident
31	35	Blake Lothian	Chevrolet	62	57’38.745	138 Laps		Brakes
32	87	Austin Green	Chevrolet	61	56’57.782	139 Laps		Engine
33	91	Mason Maggio	Chevrolet	51	50’14.980	149 Laps		Engine
34	21	Austin Hill	Chevrolet	37	31’26.694	163 Laps		Accident
35	5	Luke Baldwin	Ford	4	10’32.026	196 Laps		Suspension
36	99	Parker Retzlaff	Chevrolet	2	1’30.255	198 Laps		Accident
37	1	Carson Kvapil	Chevrolet	1	33.409	199 Laps		Accident