Blaney admitted that he was motivated to get back to the front after the pit road miscue.

“You’re going to feel really bad if you mess up and don’t win, and that’s what I thought was going to happen,” the 23-year-old added. “I didn’t know if we were going to get our shot to get back to the lead. I don’t want to say the cautions went our way, because we needed long runs, but it worked out to where we could put ourselves into position and then capitalize on it.”

“Brian Wilson did a great job on this thing and it was going to be definitely bad if we didn’t win.”

Harvick held on to the runner-up spot in the end, but lamented the final restart where Blaney ultimately pounced.

“If I could do it again, I’d probably try it different but I felt like the 12 (Blaney) had the best car on the restarts. He’s the one who helped us get the lead and he just was able to get going through (Turns) 1 and 2 there.”

“I needed to be clear by the time I got to (Turns) 3 and 4. That’s why I hadn’t been picking the top but I felt like if I let the 12 and the 22 (Keselowski) get paired up on the top, I’d be in double-trouble. … All in all, I just got beat there in the end by the 12 and he did a great job all day on the restarts.”

Dillon rallied from an opening lap penalty, where he beat polesitter Justin Allgaier to the start-finish line on the initial green flag and had to drop to the rear of the field, to complete the podium finishers.

NASCAR Camping World Truck Series regular Christopher Bell also charged back through the field, coming back from a lap two spin through the infield grass that brought out the race’s first caution flag to record a fourth-place finish in his XFINITY debut.

“Man, I’m just really thankful to (have been) in this No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Camry today,” Bell smiled. “We had to fight through a lot of adversity there, and we had a lot of issues where we’d start passing guys and then we’d have to come back and start at the tail … do it all over again.”

“I’m glad it was a 200-lapper because we used every single bit of it. We didn’t have a luck on the restarts at the beginning of the race, with starting on the bottom, but we got the luck and the lanes when we needed them at the end.”

Defending race winner Denny Hamlin completed the top five, ahead of Brad Keselowski, rookie Cole Custer, Brennan Poole, Brendan Gaughan and Tyler Reddick.

The NASCAR XFINITY Series returns to action on June 3 at Dover Int’l Speedway.

Full race results can be viewed on the next page…