HAMPTON, Ga. — Nick Sanchez scored his first career NASCAR Xfinity Series victory early Saturday morning at EchoPark Speedway, as rookies took four of the top five spots in a race that was delayed by lightning and ended at 12:26 a.m. ET.
The 24-year-old Sanchez became the first driver to earn their first series victory this season. He gave Big Machine Racing its second career Xfinity victory.
“In this sport, winning is everything,” Sanchez said. “Nobody cares about second, third. Nobody cares that I ran great at Pocono or Texas. They look at the results and that’s all they see. That’s frustrating. Obviously, I feel like I’m a lot better than what I’ve shown this year. I’m a lot better than my results.
“I’m not going to shy away from the fact that winning is the only you’re going to advance in the sport.”
MORE: Xfinity results
Rookie Carson Kvapil finished second to match his career-best result. Sam Mayer placed third. Rookie Connor Zilisch was fourth. Rookie Taylor Gray placed fifth.
Twenty-six of the 38 cars were involved in an incident, including Sanchez. He spun to bring out the caution on Lap 68 of the 163-lap race after contact with Matt DiBenedetto as they raced for sixth place at the time.
The race was delayed 1 hour, 18 minutes before the end of stage 1 due to lightning.
Shortly after the restart, a 10-car crash eliminated Sheldon Creed, Justin Allgaier, Ryan Sieg, Sammy Smith, Katherine Legge and Patrick Staropoli.
Stage 1 winner: Taylor Gray
Stage 2 winner: Brandon Jones
Next: The series races at 4:30 p.m. ET Saturday, July 5 in the Chicago Street Race.
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