Austin Dillon was fastest in both Xfinity Series practices at Las Vegas on Friday and also took the pole. His #33 Chevrolet stayed fast during Saturday's 300-mile Xfinity race, and in the end Dillon held off the #22 Ford of Ryan Blaney to take his first Xfinity Series win since September of 2012, when he was driving the #3 car now driven by his brother Ty. In 2013, Dillon won the series championship without winning any races, and moved up to the Sprint Cup Series in 2014 to replace Kevin Harvick. On Saturday, Dillon, now doing double duty by running most Xfinity races in addition to his full Cup schedule, returned to being the driver he had been back when he was an Xfinity regular.
Some Cup regulars such as Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Denny Hamlin also had fast cars. Xfinity regulars Erik Jones, Brian Scott, Ty Dillon and Elliott Sadler also did well in practice and qualifying, but ran into some issues during the actual race. Scott had major engine problems just a few laps into the race that sent him to the garage, while Jones, a teammate of Kyle Busch whose sub for this race in the #54 Toyota was Hamlin, experienced a third non-SAFER barrier hit in as many weeks in NASCAR national series competition, further perpetuating the calls from drivers, crew members and fans to install SAFER barriers at every single point of all major NASCAR tracks.
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