Last season's first Rockingham event saw a ton of unusual names at the forefront, with two High Octane Racing cars inside the top-5 for the first time in their brief history. It was the day that Donald Stewart, Bill Werkheiser and Bink Lucas set the tone for their unprecedented successful 2022 seasons. With Dalton Lucas and Cristian Torres gridding inside the top-3, expect more of the same in the 2023 Jiffy Pop 400.

Race Results

Points Standings

Race Recap

The green flag flew for the 393-lap event with Rick Jackson at the helm and Dalton Lucas ready to pounce. Jackson was able to flourish, leading lap 1 while Lucas succumbed to the pressure and drifted back. His teammate John Battista took the lead for the first time on lap 24 and remained there for the rest of the green flag run.

A cataclysm of the ages roared towards the rear of the field. Three and four-wide action throughout provided the impetus for Zakk Miller and Trey Larkin to earn 20+ positions during the first 30 laps and propell themselves out of danger of going a lap down. Larkin would eventually fade, while Miller stayed strong all race to earn a 10th place finish.

An enormous sunshine provided sizzling temperatures and an enormnous attrition rate. Alan Nesfeder, Matt Raboin and Cristian Torres all fell out early, bringing the entire Detroit brigade into sheer despair. Torres dropped from 12th to 21st in the standings due to the failure.

A pit road crash between Tim McDonnell, Matthew Dominique and leader John Battista destroyed the #22 and #25 machines. McDonnell came in third in the standings in persuit of a revival season, running in 6th at the time of the accident but finishing 40th. Dominique would crawl to 38th position, as both drivers would lose their streak of leading a lap during every event of the season.

John Battista suffered rear-end damage after getting clipped by McDonnell's front-end on pit road, losing the lead to Tony Pizzaro. The #12 would dominate the middle portion of the event, leading by nearly 10 seconds at the one-third mark of the race. Teammate Rick Jackson suffered an engine failure while running in second place, expanding the gap for Pizzaro while Jackson dropped from 6th to 16th in the standings.

Two spinouts through the infield grass by Dave Daniels and Dalton Lucas failed to bring out the caution flag before the halfway mark. On lap 229, contact between Alex Crapser and Ryan Heuser entering turn 4 spun the #04 into the outside wall, directly into the path of Tim McDonnell. Both drivers failed to finish inside of the top-30.

The five-second gap between Tony Pizzaro and John Battista was erased. The rest of the field attempted to exploit the two dominators, including Chauncey Redmond Jr., who's miraculous fuel-save strategy roulette-wheeled his way back onto the lead lap. After the restart, Dave Miller was able to capitalize on a fantastic pit stop to take his first lead of the day.

The lead was swapped several times by Miller and John Battista while Dakota Wilkins blew his engine to earn his second DNF of the season. Battista was able to take it outright and pull away from everybody except Redmond, who scavenged through the field with four fresh tires from the caution flag pit stop. Dave Miller dropped to six seconds back, forcing a short-pit strategy late in the going to re-take the lead.

Chauncey Redmond Jr. miraculously tracked down Dave Miller despite the 10-second advantage, forcing a final short-pit by the #90 with 43 laps to go. Miller entered the pits only three laps prior to Redmond and Battista, narrowly re-gaining the advantage by less than a second as the #90 and #39 meandered through lapped traffic on their way to the checkered flag. With 15 laps remaining, Battista took the lead from Miller for good and earned the most laps led bonus from Tony Pizzaro by only four circuits.

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