XFinity: Austin Dillon crushes Charlotte field

Austin Dillon battled back to get the lead from Denny Hamlin with 15 laps to go to cap off a strong performance to take the NASCAR XFinity Series Hisense 300 at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

Dillon, driving the No. 33 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet, led 163 of the 200 laps, en route to his second victory of the season and fourth of his series career.

The 2013 champion won the pole earlier in the day and absolutely blistered the field early on, similar to what he did at Las Vegas in March in the early going. In fact, Dillon drove the same car at Charlotte that he did in his Vegas win, where he started from the pole and led 183 of 200 laps for the win.

Hamlin made an unscheduled pit stop a little before the midpoint of the race for a loose wheel, but the Joe Gibbs Racing driver was able to battle back for the runner-up finish. Hamlin used a strong restart to take the lead on Lap 167 but couldn't hold off Dillon.

JR Motorsports teammates Kasey Kahne and Regan Smith finished third and fourth, respectively. Darrell Wallace Jr. rounded out the top five for his best career finish in the XFinity Series.

Chris Buescher finished 11th, but kept the points lead in the series. Ty Dillon, who finished seventh, is just four points back of Buescher. Defending XFinity Series champion Chase Elliott finished eighth and is third in the standings, 28 points back of Buescher.

Smith, Wallace Jr., Daniel Suarez and Ty Dillon became the four cars to qualify for the first round of the Dash 4 Cash program at Dover next weekend.

Lengthy green flag runs happened often in this race with just three cautions over the 200-lap event.

Defending race winner Kyle Larson took his No. 42 Chevrolet Camaro to the garage for some work near the midpoint of the race for a broken rear shock mount and finished 33rd.