XFINITY: Brandon Jones Tames Darlington, Snaps 98-Race Losing Skid

Jim Dedmon-Imagn Images

It had been nearly 100 races, 98 to be exact, since Brandon Jones last reached victory lane but in Saturday afternoon's Sport Clips Haircuts VFW Help a Hero 200 at Darlington Raceway, the Joe Gibbs Racing driver snapped the streak by taming the track 'Too Tough to Tame'.

For the 28-year-old racer, the last couple of seasons have been agonizing, and mentally taxing.

"I know for a fact if you've never been in that situation, that it's hard to explain the mental aspect of it," Jones said in his post-race press conference. "Very difficult to have good self-talk after a couple of years of just not winning races. I think there were some performances that if a couple of things had gone right, we could have won. But it just seemed like it would never line up. There were days that I was barely off and days that I was really on, and could just never put it all together."

Saturday, at Darlington it all finally came together, and Jones was rewarded for his perserverance.

Jones, the driver of the No. 20 Toyota GR Supra, led the race three times for a total of 24 laps and took the lead for the final time with a pass on Alpha Prime Racing's Brennan Poole on the final restart of the race with 12 laps remaining in the race.

On that final restart, Jones was on fresh tires, while the top few cars in the running order had stayed on track with older tires. The driver admits while he was confident in his No. 20 car, that he knew the precarious position he was in on that final restart on Saturday.

"I was actually worried a little bit about [the restart] because I knew of the older tires with the other cars in front of us, and I kind of knew I had seen this play out once or twice before where this could go south in a hurry," Jones explained. "You know, if guys spin their tires really bad, you've got the guy behind you breathing down your neck, pushing you into the other guy. It could get ugly quick when you have older tires like that on the front row. But it actually worked exactly how I wanted it to work out."

Down the stretch, Jones would hold off Chase Elliott, the 2020 NASCAR Cup Series champion, for the win in the NASCAR Xfinity Series race. The victory is the sixth of the Atlanta, Georgia native's 310-race NASCAR Xfinity Series career, and it's his second win at Darlington.

Justin Allgaier, the defending NASCAR Xfinity Series champion and current series point leader, would come home with a solid third-place finish ahead of Ross Chastain, who was fourth.

Behind Chastain were four drivers, who make up part of the incredibly talented 2025 NASCAR Xfinity Series rookie crop. Carson Kvapil took the top rookie honors in the race with a sixth-place run, while Connor Zilisch, Christian Eckes, and Nick Sanchez finished seventh through eighth.

Sammy Smith finished ninth a week after his controversial late-race shenanigans at Martinsville Speedway, which led to a 50-point deduction and a $25,000 fine from NASCAR.

Sheldon Creed capped off the top-10 finishers in the race.

Speaking of tame, Saturday's race, when compared to last week's crashfest at Martinsville, was just that. There were six cautions in the 147-lap event, including three for multi-car crashes, but overall, the field raced with a lot more respect than what was shown last weekend at the 0.526-mile Martinsville Speedway.

After last week's race, which was widely considered an embarrassment for the series, NASCAR called an early-morning meeting with the NASCAR Xfinity Series drivers on Saturday at Darlington Raceway ahead of any on-track activity.

According to Austin Hill, NASCAR leadership was stern, but fair as they laid down the law with the drivers in the meeting.

RELATED: Hill Says Drivers Need to Look In Mirror After Martinsville

Hill says the sanctioning body told the group that while they don't like intervening mid-race with strike and ball calls in regard to on-track incidents, they would if the drivers gave them no other option.

For the most part, it seemed like Saturday morning's sitdown with the drivers resulted in a much cleaner race in Saturday's Sport Clips Haircuts VFW Help a Hero 200 at Darlington.

With a Stage win and a third-place run, Allgaier, who led a race-high 56 laps padded his NASCAR Xfinity Series point lead over Sam Mayer, who finished 14th. Allgaier now carries a 71-point advantage after the opening eight races of the season. Austin Hill sits third in the championship standings, 79 points back after a 16th-place result on Saturday.

Harrison Burton won the opening Stage of the race marking the second Stage Win of the year for the driver of the No. 25 AM Racing Ford Mustang Dark Horse. Burton, who would finish 13th, sits 10th in the championship standings after eight races, 16 spots better than Hailie Deegan ranked for the team at this point a season ago.

Next up for the NASCAR Xfinity Series is a date with the 0.533-mile Bristol Motor Speedway. The SciApps 300, a 300-lap event at Bristol, which will serve as the ninth race of the 33-race NASCAR Xfinity Series season, is set for Saturday, April 12. That race will be televised on The CW with coverage kicking off at 5:00 PM ET.