NASCAR Xfinity Series at Las Vegas 2015: Results: Winner, Standings and Reaction

In what can only be described as a dominant performance, Austin Dillon took the checkered flag to win the NASCAR Xfinity Series Boyd Gaming 300 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway Saturday.

The 2013 Xfinity Series champion led a remarkable 183 of 200 laps and held off a late challenge by Ryan Blaney to enter Victory Lane.

Dillon was in control for nearly the entire race, which wasn't particularly surprising considering how well he performed in qualifying and practice, according to NASCAR Xfinity on Twitter:

Here is a rundown of the top 10 finishers in the Boyd Gaming 300, with a full listing of results available at NASCAR.com:

With three Xfinity Series races now officially in the books, the standings break down as follows, per NASCAR.com:

By virtue of an eighth-place finish, Dillon's brother—Ty Dillon—took sole possession of first place in the standings over Chris Buescher.

The first major happening of Saturday's race occurred early on during the 12th lap, as veteran Mike Bliss hit the wall:

Things were largely clean until 40 laps later when Blake Koch did the same and brought out another caution flag.

Despite the the reshuffling of the field through pit stops, Dillon continued to dominate throughout the first half of the race. In fact, at the midway point of the event, Dillon had led 99 laps, per Jim Utter of The Charlotte Observer:

Dillon lost the lead during green-flag pit stops after the 100-lap mark had come and gone, and he wasn't thrilled with the performance of his pit crew, according to Chris Knight CatchFence.com:

Despite that miscue, it didn't take long for Dillon to find his way back to the front and reassert his dominance over the rest of the field.

As is often the case, the top 10 was littered with Sprint Cup drivers for much of the race. Denny Hamlin was among them even though he qualified a somewhat disappointing 11th.

While Hamlin didn't have a great qualifying run in place of the injury Kyle Busch, he was confident in his ability to vie for the victory Saturday, per Ashley McCubbin of SpeedwayMedia.com.

For whatever reason, I'm not good at qualifying so we struggle a little bit in qualifying. I'm really looking forward to the race. I feel like we have a good car. Thankful for the opportunity, and obviously thinking about Kyle (Busch) racing in his hometown. I wish I could sub him in here for the session.

Hamlin certainly had a good save on his car and himself, as he was in the mix throughout the race and remained within striking distance of Dillon inside the top five.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. and his No. 88 car ran in the top 10 for almost the entirety of the race, but he struggled to be a true threat to Dillon and the other cars up front.

Handling seemed to be an issue, as evidenced by this tweet courtesy of JR Motorsports:

There were no such problems for Dillon, though, as his No. 33 Chevrolet seemed to hum along like a dream all day long.

He seemed destined for a victory, but matters were complicated with just over 40 laps remaining in the race as Mario Gosselin brought out a caution shortly after Dillon had already pitted:

Dillon had regained the lead by that point, though, and continued to pace the field. One of his top pursuers throughout the day brought out another caution on the 172nd lap, however, as Erik Jones hit the wall:

The green flag waved once again with 22 laps remaining, and Brendan Gaughan looked to take aim at Dillon from second place, per Richard Childress Racing on Twitter:

Gaughan was nearly able to overtake Dillon after the restart, but he simply didn't have enough and quickly dropped back to fourth place for his efforts.

That left Blaney to take his best shot at the leader down the stretch. The talented youngster was hot on Dillon's trail, but he was unable to overtake the eventual winner.

Since Dillon can't race for points in the Xfinity Series, what he gained most from this victory was confidence entering Sunday's Sprint Cup race at Las Vegas.

He will have plenty of work to do after qualifying 25th, but he proved Saturday that he has all the tools necessary to excel on that track.

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