Aric Almirola held on against Connor Zilisch, collecting his tenth career win and his third of the 2025 season. The ex-Cup driver took the lead after Zilisch was chasing a loose race car and bobbled in Turn 2, with the two cars made door-to-door contact down the backstretch as Almirola moved ahead. Zilisch tried to respond, but his car was out of control and Almirola managed to hang on.
“Thank you God, this is such an incredible opportunity,” said Almirola. “Thank you Coach (Gibbs). It’s such an awesome honor to go race for an owner’s championship with JD Gibbs’ name on the car. I’m having so much fun. This is the time of my life, man. Our car was good, but the longer I ran, the tighter I got. That restart there, I took off incredibly tight. I couldn’t get going. The #48 [Nick Sanchez] kind of slowed my momentum down, and finally I got clear of him and was able to go chase the #88 [Zilisch] down. He looked pretty loose, and I was able to capitalize on that.
Zilisch finished a close second with Justin Allgaier third, Corey Day fourth, and Nick Sanchez fifth. This was Day’s first career top five finish, coming in only his ninth career start.
Jesse Love, who finished sixth after being in contention for the win for most of the race, engaged in a heated conversation on pit road after the race.
Stages 1 and 2
Allgaier started the race from pole position, and the first caution of the race was for debris. On the restart, Love took it three-wide for the lead, but was unsuccessful. Almirola went on to win the stage with Zilisch close behind and Love in third.
In the second stage, Love won the race off pit road, but Almirola reclaimed the lead as the race got back underway.
There was some tense side-drafting with Zilisch and Love making contact, but also Allgaier and Hill. Later on, Hill pulled off an incredible save in Turn 3 as his car snapped sideways with Sieg directly behind him.
Almirola swept the stages, but this time, it was Love close behind in second and Zilisch third.
Stage 3
Almirola snatched the lead away from Zilisch with 94 laps to go, but he was later run down by Love, who claimed the lead with 59 laps left. The leaders pitted soon after, and Almirola aggressively re-passed Love as they raced to the entry of pit road.
However, it was a short-lived victory as Love reclaimed the top spot with a stellar pit stop.
It became a three-way fight for the lead between Love, Zilisch and Almirola. With 30 to go, Zilisch finally got Love loose in traffic and took the lead, only for the caution to immediately fly as Dean Thompson spun back in the pack.
Love lost another spot on pit road with Almirola sneaking ahead of him, and he only went backwards when the race got back going.
The final restart of the race came with 23 laps to go, and Zilisch got away cleanly. However, Almirola remained close, setting up an absolute dogfight for the race win.
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