Phoenix Raceway’s first event of the 2025 Xfinity Series season, the GovX 200 provided some of the best racing of the season thus far, showing off the old school style of racing the track can produce given the car.

Unlike most races here, leaders couldn’t capitalize on clean air immediately and the cars in tow could get runs and challenge opponents for the lead.

While the racing was phenomenal, the races biggest competitors were full time Cup driver Alex Bowman and eventual winner and former Cup driver Aric Almirola, who took much of the spotlight away from the series regulars. More on that after the race recap

Bowman, driving the #17 HendrickCars Chevy, wasted no time taking the lead in the first stage, eventually leading all 45 laps en route to the stage win. Bowman’s 45 laps led were the most in any of his 56 series starts.

Eventual contender Justin Allgaier would power from 14th place to third by lap 20, joining the trifecta of Bowman and Aric Almirola as the fastest cars on the track. Almirola made his second start of the season for Joe Gibbs Racing in the #19 YoungLife Toyota Supra and was one of the contenders from the start

The second stage would see the 19 duel with Bowman and Allgaier even more, however issues around the field would ramp up. Atlanta winner Austin Hill would tag the inside of the pit wall, sending his car into contender Sheldon Creed’s and ending both of their days.

Almirola and Bowman would show just how capable Phoenix is, running side by side and trading the lead while fighting off the 2024 series champion Allgaier. The #7 would show the field how he captured his first championship at the track in fall, utilizing superior corner exit and keeping Almirola at bay for an eventual stage two win, the 70th of his storied Xfinity career.

The stage showed viewers who the top dogs in the race were, and it looked as if stage three would come down to a desert duel between Chevy and Ford. Almirola would lose spots on pit road, as his crew made multiplier mistakes on various stops, proving how fast the #19 Supra was.

Stage three would see last season’s champion absolutely take control, holding Bowman at bay and being the best restarter as cautions would come around. Allgaier would put on a 1.9 second cushion over Bowman and Almirola, and with three laps to go it looked like the JRM driver would punch his ticket for a chance at a repeat.

Then, of course, the caution flew as Nick Leitz (in the fantastic Vans Warped Tour Chevy) would spin and cause us to go to NASCAR overtime, forcing Allgaier to try and clutch the win.

Allgaier would have yet another great restart, however so would Almirola. Side by side, Allgaier would get sideways in turn two which allowed Bowman to secure the lead and surpass both drivers.

Coming to the white, Bowman would need to defend against a hard charging Almirola to secure the victory and his first series win since 2017. Into turn four Almirola would have a slight advantage on the bottom.

With Bowman coming in fast on the outside, Almirola had no intention of lifting and pinched him into the outside wall. The 19 would take the checkered flag, just barely beating both Bowman and JGR teammate Brandon Jones.

“I feel like it was warranted” said Almirola, “I don’t think I did anything overly egregious. I just throttled up and I knew it was gonna be a drag race to the start finish line”

Bowman, who wheeled the #17 to it’s second runner-up finish in the row, wouldn’t share the same sentiment

“I would’ve hoped he would’ve given me a lane on exit, but he just exited like nobody was there” said Bowman

“He was better than us, for sure, just trying to capitalize off the restart and trying to win the race and got shoved into the fence and the race cars destroyed”

Controversial but entertaining finish for the two drivers, but I have to ask, is it worth the competitive advantage over the regulars?

In NASCAR the practice is known as Buschwhacking, when a driver from the Cup series drops down to a lower tier and wins the race outright.

Today’s winner Almirola may not be a cup driver anymore, but he has all the experience of one and has multiple series wins. His opponent Bowman is in fact a Cup regular as well.

I know this practice has been happening for a long time and many young drivers enjoy the challenge and education it gives them, but maybe require the Cup guys to run for lower teams in lesser equipment?

We saw Tyler Reddick give Big Machine Racing their first win in the series this way, which makes sense, what we saw today was essential JGR vs Hendrick against the rest of the Xfinity field.

It may be a moot point and complaints for no reason, as we could just surmise that Allgaier and the rest of the Xfinity field should’ve just been better.

Regardless, we’ll have to wait another week to see the spotlight put on guys like Carson Kvapil, Sam Mayer or Connor Zilisch.

The Xfinity series will go green from Las Vegas Motorspeedway at 1:30 for The LiUNA! (actually the name not a typo, exclamation included)