The NASCAR Xfinity Series playoffs begin Saturday night at Las Vegas Motor Speedway with the first race in the Round of 12.
Regular season champion AJ Allmendinger and reigning series champion Austin Cindric start the playoffs tied atop the leaderboard (2,044 points, +39 above the cutline to advance).
Cindric will start on the pole Saturday night. Allmendinger will join him on the front row.
This past March at Las Vegas, Allmendinger took the lead from Daniel Hemric off a restart with 13 laps to go and earned the first of his four wins this season.
Details for Saturday’s Las Vegas Xfinity race:
(All times are Eastern)
START: Dan Johnson, senior vice president of fixed operations for the Larry H. Miller Dealerships, will give the command to start engines at 7:38 p.m. … The green flag is scheduled to wave at 7:49 p.m.
PRERACE: Xfinity garage opens at 1 p.m. … Drivers report to pre-race at 6:55 p.m. … Driver introductions are at 7 p.m. … The invocation will be given by Billy Mauldin of Motor Racing Outreach at 7:30 p.m. … The national anthem will be performed by The Doo-Wop Kings at 7:31 p.m.
DISTANCE: The race is 201 laps (302 miles) on the 1.5-mile speedway.
STAGES: Stage 1 ends at Lap 45. Stage 2 ends at Lap 90.
TV/RADIO: NBCSN coverage begins with Countdown to Green at 7 p.m., leading into race coverage … Performance Racing Network’s radio coverage begins at 7 p.m. and also will stream at GoPRN.com; SiriusXM NASCAR Radio will carry the broadcast.
STREAMING: NBCSN
FORECAST: Weather Underground’s forecast calls for mostly sunny skies, a high of 94 degrees, and dry conditions around the start of the race.
STARTING LINEUP: Las Vegas Xfinity starting lineup
LAST YEAR: Chase Briscoe advanced to the second round of the playoffs with a dominant drive at Las Vegas. He swept both stages and led 164 of 200 laps on the way to victory.