NASCAR O’Reilly Series: Corey Day delivers Thrilling Las Vegas Win

LAS VEGAS — Corey Day delivers the win in a thrilling multi-lap battle to the finish with Carson Kvapil at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series.

This is Day’s third win of the season and of his O’Reilly Series career.

Wow… The Focused Health 302’s polesitter delivered a win from the pole in what could be the most exciting finish of the season.

Day started his afternoon by leading the opening few laps before the Chase leader, Sheldon Creed, passed him for the top spot. He did not stay in second for too long as he retook the lead from Creed a few laps later to lead to his opening stage victory.

From there he maintained his top dog status. But a huge wreck with major Chase implications occurred almost as soon as the stage started which changed the direction of the second stage for the No. 17 team.

They were able to rebound nicely and placed second in the stage. Then the final stage looked eerily similar to the first.

Corey Day was able to create a steady one-to-two second gap ahead of the chasing Carson Kvapil. Even the long green flag run that lead to a rare green flag pit cycle failed to bring him closer to Day.

But lap traffic had something to say. With the tougher lap traffic the closer Day lapped to the top ten, the more moving chicanes he hit. Eventually, Kvpail caught the caught up Day which led to an epic conclusion with under 20 laps remaining.

Back and forth they went trading paint and the lead with under ten to go. Using lessons learned from his dirt background and mentor Kyle Larson, Day found a new groove on the high-side of the track.

He utilized run after run and eventually bounced off the wall a few times to win in the Chase.

The win and accompanying major points haul has Day firmly in the championship battle once again. He now sits fourth only 40 points behind the lead.

The Top Ten

Carson Kvapil nearly had his third win of the season and the Chase lead. But the sophomore JR Motorsports driver settles for a great points day and his best intermediate result in second place.

Jesse Love overtook Brent Crews late in the race for the final podium position from third. Even though Crews slipped one positions, the rookie driver finished inside the top five in the first time of asking at Las Vegas.

Finally, Taylor Gray joined his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate inside the top five from fifth.

Sam Mayer won the second stage and would have been a major player to win the race. However, after his stage win he incurred a pit road penalty during the following pit stop and had to restart from the rear.

Mayer was able to rebound to sixth place, but the team leaves Sin City with the same amount of “what if’s” as many others do.

Jeremy Clements was fastest in practice. He parlayed that into a solid top ten night in seventh place.

William Sawalich suffered an issue in the lone practice session of the weekend which prevented them from qualifying. The Minnesotan climbed through the field and even found the front during the second stage but settled for a nice top ten finish from eighth.

Finally, Austin Hill and Anthony Alfredo rounded out the top ten from ninth and tenth.

Notable Results

Throughout the Chase so far, many drivers have had issues. Tonight was not an exception as multiple had problems of varying degrees.

Despite damage on pit road, Rajah Caruth delivered his best performance of the Chase so far. He finished third in both stages but fell outside the top ten with the damage to place 11th.

Sheldon Creed may walk out of here with his Chase lead intact, but it was a struggle some night for the No. 00 Haas Factory Team group. He narrowly avoided finishing outside of the lead lap from 13th.

Sammy Smith placed two positions lower than Creed off the lead lap. Then, Parker Retzlaff fell to an even lower position in 19th as these two fall further away from the Chase lead after tonight.

Finally, in a race where Brandon Jones and Justin Allgaier looked to gain the most, they failed the most. Brandon Jones failed to catch his car on the exit of turn two in the second stage and collected Allgaier in the largest wreck of the night.

While the loss eventually was minimized for Allgaier, the damage was done. The regular season champion fell further away from the Chase lead with his DNF in 34th.

In the end he dropped to fourth in the Chase. Crucially, he is still within a race of the lead as he currently sits on a 41-point deficit heading back home to Charlotte.

Below are the full results and Chase standings after the Focused Health 302.

Full Results & Chase Standings