Corey Day led 136 of the 201 laps at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Saturday, and the race still came down to the last two. Carson Kvapil passed him on Lap 190. Day got the lead back on Lap 192, Kvapil took it again on Lap 199, and Day took it back for good on Lap 200, moving up against the outside wall. He won the Focused Health 302, a 201-lap, 301.5-mile race, by 0.287 seconds.
It was Day's third win in the NASCAR O'Reilly Auto Parts Series, all of them this season, following wins at Talladega and Dover. It was his first at Las Vegas in three starts. The 20-year-old started from the pole in the No. 17 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, won the first stage, one of two segments that pay points before the finish, and turned the fastest lap of the race.
Sheldon Creed finished 13th and still leads the Chase, the O'Reilly Series' nine-race playoff, and his lead over second place grew from 11 points to 19. That is because Justin Allgaier, second coming in, was caught in an early crash with Brandon Jones, finished 34th and fell to fourth. Kvapil, who has two wins this season, moved up to second. Five races remain.
The last 12 laps
Day had led 41 straight laps when Kvapil got by.
"I was dying tight, he was dying loose," Day said afterward. When Kvapil got inside him, Day said, he thought the race was over: "I didn't think there was really another lane that I could get by him in."
A tight car resists turning; a loose one slides at the back.
His car was too tight in the middle lane, where it had been good all day, he said. "And then fortunately enough, I just kind of went to the fence and found speed there."
Being the one chased, he said, was no fun. "For me, that was more stressful," he said. "I wasn't trying to lead the whole entire race and then give it away in the last five."
Day raced sprint cars, the open-wheel dirt cars, before stock cars, and he credited that background for staying on the throttle against the wall: "not lifting and getting everything I can out of it." A "stock car guy" in his position, he said, might have made different decisions, "but it worked out."
Where the Chase stands
Points were reset when the Chase began, which is why the totals are large and the gaps small. In the standings, Creed has 2,259 points. Kvapil is 19 back, defending series champion Jesse Love is 21 back after finishing third, Allgaier is 30 back, Day is 41 back and Sam Mayer is 52 back.
Day came to Las Vegas 92 points out of the lead and gained 51. Kvapil gained 18 and Love 20. Allgaier came in 11 points behind Creed, who won the previous race, at Bristol, and lost 19.
Day said he would need another night like this one. "I think we need one more of those days, to tell you the truth," he said. Creed drives the No. 00 and Allgaier the No. 7. "The seven had a bad day. The double zero had a bad day. If they have good days, I don't gain that much."
Creed started second, led Laps 2 through 8 and scored 24 points.
His future was settled the same day. Sam Hunt Racing announced that Creed, who drives for Haas Factory Team, will move to its No. 26 Toyota on a multi-year deal beginning in 2027.
The crash, and a disqualification
Jones led Laps 50 through 53, after the stops at the end of the first stage. Two laps later, his No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota and Allgaier's No. 7 JR Motorsports Chevrolet crashed together in Turn 2. Both cars were towed to the garage. Allgaier's car returned late in the race for one lap, which moved him up a spot, to 34th.
After the race, NASCAR disqualified Jones because post-race inspection found four or more lug nuts on his car were not safe and secure. The disqualification moved him from 35th to 36th, last in the field. He is 11th in the standings, 137 points back.
Mayer won the second stage and led 40 laps, second only to Day. He was sent to the rear for a tire violation on pit road during the stops at the end of that stage and drove back to sixth.
The rest of the top 10
Brent Crews was fourth, the highest-finishing rookie. Taylor Gray was fifth, Mayer sixth, Jeremy Clements seventh, William Sawalich eighth, Austin Hill ninth and Anthony Alfredo 10th. Crews, Clements, Sawalich and Alfredo are not in the Chase. Sawalich started last, 36th, after a pre-race penalty for unapproved adjustments.
The race had 15 lead changes among nine drivers and three cautions for 21 laps.
"It's my favorite track for sure," Day said of Las Vegas. The series goes next to Charlotte Motor Speedway on Saturday, Oct. 10.