Nashville Xfinity results, driver points

LEBANON, Tenn. — AJ Allmendinger collected his second victory of the season and the 17th of his Xfinity Series career Saturday at Nashville Superspeedway.

Riley Herbst placed second and was followed by Sam Mayer, Austin Hill and Josh Berry.

The race had 11 cautions. Twenty-one of the 38 cars in the race were involved in accidents. The 11 cautions tied an event record.

John Hunter Nemechek remains the points leader. He leads Austin Hill by nine points and Justin Allgaier by 41 points.

Tony Stewart was famous for being — depending on your point of view — either a ‘slow starter’ or a driver who didn’t get hot on the track until temperatures rose. But is this just a maxim that’s been repeated so many times that everyone believes it?

And if there are drivers who perform better during certain parts of the season, what might that tell us about the race for the championship?

I calculated Stewart’s average finishing position by month to test this theory. In the graph below, I plot the results from his 618-race career. My scale uses red to mean good average finish (‘hot’) and blue meaning not-so-good average finish. The scale runs from 9 (bright red) to 20 (bright blue.)

Stewart’s graph runs from medium blue in the early months of the season to redder in the latter portion.

Stewart’s worst results happened in February, where he had only a 17.5 average finish. Remember, however that Stewart drove during a time when February was mostly Daytona.

March and April were marginally better for Stewart, but his best results really did come in the summer. Stewart’s average finishing position in June was a full 5.1 positions better than in February.

The trend continued throughout the rest of the year, with an average finish that hovered