Xfinity teams take on the first race of the West Coast swing Saturday during a trip to Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
This will be the first intermediate track after two consecutive superspeedway races. It will provide an opportunity for other drivers to join Austin Hill in the playoffs after he won at Daytona and Atlanta.
Hill is the defending winner of the Las Vegas spring race. Riley Herbst is the most recent Las Vegas winner after he led 103 laps and won by nearly 15 seconds last October.
Saturday’s Xfinity race will be Aric Almirola’s first start of the season as he drives for Joe Gibbs Racing. Almirola, who stepped away from Cup for a part-time Xfinity schedule, last drove for JGR in 2007.
Details for Saturday’s Xfinity race at Las Vegas
(All times Eastern)
START: The green flag is scheduled to wave at 5:13 p.m.
PRE-RACE: The invocation will take place at 4:54 p.m. ... Britnee Kellogg will perform the national anthem at 4:55 p.m. ... The command to start engines will take place at 5:02 p.m.
DISTANCE: The race is 200 laps (300 miles) on the 1.5-mile track.
STAGES: Stage 1 ends at Lap 45. Stage 2 ends at Lap 90.
STARTING LINEUP: Las Vegas Xfinity lineup
TV/RADIO: FS1 will broadcast the race at 5 p.m. ... Pre-race coverage begins with NASCAR RaceDay on FS1 at 4 p.m. ... Performance Racing Network coverage begins at 4:30 p.m. … SiriusXM NASCAR Radio will have the PRN broadcast.
FORECAST: Weather Underground: Windy with partly cloudy skies. High of 63 degrees and a 6% chance of rain at the start of the Xfinity race.
LAST TIME: Chandler Smith started from pole and led 118 of the 200 laps. He had a 2.5-second lead in the final stage but Austin Hill erased it, taking the lead at the white flag. He won his second race in the first three weeks of the season. Justin Allgaier passed Smith on the final lap before finishing second. Kyle Busch and Josh Berry rounded out the top five.
