Josh Berry, JR Motorsports crush Charlotte competition

JR Motorsports had never won at Charlotte Motor Speedway on oval nor Roval since the team’s début in 2006. On Saturday, JRM finally slayed those demons in dominating fashion as Justin Allgaier, Josh Berry, Noah Gragson, and Sam Mayer combined to lead 190 of 200 laps, with Berry having eighty-nine en route to his second win of the 2022 NASCAR Xfinity Series season.

Berry and Allgaier turned Charlotte into their personal playground with eighty-nine and sixty-three laps led, respectively, and winning the first two stages. Unfortunately for Allgaier, a late flat tyre eliminated him from the race win, though he salvaged a top ten out of it. With Allgaier out of the picture, Berry coasted to an 18.039-second win over runner-up Ty Gibbs, which TobyChristie.com’s Joseph Srigley pointed out is the widest margin of victory in the Xfinity Series since Jeff Burton was 19.493 seconds ahead of Michael Waltrip in the 2002 fall Charlotte event.

Mayer and Gragson placed third and fourth after respectively having two and thirty-six laps in front. Ryan Preece, who is running all three national series races at Charlotte, is the only non-JRM driver to lead laps with ten, though only one was under Green. Preece’s nine circuits in first came after a wreck that collected multiple drivers like Anthony Alfredo, Austin Dillon, Joe Graf Jr., Stefan Parsons, and Ryan Sieg.

For the second time this weekend, post-race frustrations appeared when Jeb Burton and Gragson had a vocal, expletive-laden discussion on pit road about the other’s driving conduct. Burton subsequently tweeted, “And like I said to his face the only reason he’s in the car is bc of the check. I’ve been in the same stuff and out ran him almost every race go look at the stats.”