Nick Sanchez wins his way into NASCAR Xfinity playoffs at Atlanta

Nick Sanchez was starting to feel some NASCAR Xfinity Series playoff pressure but the rookie won his way into the elimination showdown and the pressure has shifted entirely to others.

The driver of the No. 48 Big Machine Racing Chevrolet entered this weekend at Atlanta Motor Speedway 26 points out of a playoff spot. This wasn’t insurmountable odds but a surprise winner, with no shortage of wild card races left in the regular season, most certainly could have pushed it that direction.

“It’s a weight lifted off my shoulders, that’s for sure,” Sanchez said. “Now we can go chase checkered flags.”

The path to his inaugural winner at the second highest level was eventful, needing to overcome a Lap 68 spin from sixth place, to methodically work his way back through the field. Even once back out front, he lost the lead on the final restart where Carson Kvapil pushed a wounder Jesse Love to the lead only for them to both lose it back.

“As far as the spin, I mean that was just totally on me,” Sanchez said. “Coming off (Turn) 4, I don’t want to say it’s hard to judge but when you get really aggressive on a side draft, you really have to make sure the guy isn’t coming off the corner angled in a certain way.

“I just caught him at the wrong point. Luckily, nothing happened to the car. I got out of there scotch free (and) didn’t even go a lap down. … Just put that in in the memory bank and you live and you learn.”

He learned pretty quickly as it turns out.

“I was trying to keep (Love) to my inside because he had a damaged car,” Sanchez said. “I though (Aric Almirola) was the faster car and I wanted to keep him behind us. If (Love) can’t jump out and take the lead and run away with it, they’re going to be thinking that’s the reason he’s not up there and they need to shuck him out of line.”

That’s a very methodical approach from a young driver.

To ultimately prevail, he needed to fend off another rookie in JR Motorsports’ Carson Kvapil. He pushed Love out front and took the lead when Love wasn’t able to keep his car on the bottom.

But the broken momentum allowed Sanchez to pass both.

“To be that close really does sting,” said Kvapil. “I couldn’t really generate a run there. I didn’t feel like we had enough cars nose-to-tail and organized. We were all kind of just too far away from each other. I tried backing up on the last lap… I probably could have made a move earlier. I just felt like, if we got side-by-side, we’d get swallowed up by somebody.”

It was a long night for all involved as there were multiple crashes and a one hour, 18 minutes and 55 second lightning hold delay on Lap 36.

When the race resumed, Sheldon Creed, who led the first 37 laps from the pole, tried to flip the stage by pitting under caution after the resumption, but it backfired. He was one of 10 drivers involved in a massive wreck on the backstretch moments after a restart on Lap 41. Contact from Sanchez turned Jesse Love across traffic near the front of the field.

It resulted in a pile-up.

“It was probably the best car I’ve had all year,” Creed said ruefully after leaving the infield care center. “Just really fast, could control lanes and felt really good up front. So we were just trying to keep ourselves up front by short-pitting there, and it didn’t work out.”

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