Justin Allgaier expertly managed fuel, tires and patience in the final laps of Monday’s Alsco Uniforms 300 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, and was rewarded with his and JR Motorsports’ first victory of the NASCAR Xfinity Series season.
In a race rescheduled from Saturday due to inclement weather –and later moved to after Monday’s Coca-Cola 600 due to rain showers – Allgaier led a race-high 84 laps and beat John Hunter Nemechek to the finish line by 7.83 seconds. Cole Custer, Austin Hill and Ty Gibbs rounded out the top five. Gibbs also ran Monday’s Coca-Cola 600, finishing 26th after being involved in an accident.
Allgaier stretched his final fuel run long enough to maintain the lead for the final 33 laps without losing focus and letting Nemechek or Custer close in on him.
Allgaier’s win was the 20th of his Xfinity Series career.
Parker Retzlaff ended the race in sixth, while Jeb Burton, Carson Hocevar, Brandon Jones and Sammy Smith completed the top 10.
JUSTIN ALLGAIER, NO. 7 JR MOTORSPORTS CHEVROLET (RACE WINNER): “This whole weekend’s been kind of a hectic weekend. To stand here tonight, to get a win, it’s truly special. To have 20 (Xfinity Series) wins in my career, it’s definitely not Kyle Busch-status, but to be in this sport, to be with a team like JR Motorsports and to have an opportunity to do this for a living and go to victory lane for seven straight years, it’s truly special. To win on Memorial Day, to be here, is just truly special. The car that we had today, I told the whole No. 7 team I’m so proud of the job they did.”
JOHN HUNTER NEMECHEK, NO. 20 JOE GIBBS RACING TOYOTA (RUNNER-UP): “Hindsight’s 20/20, right? You could’ve raced (Allgaier) for it (instead of saving fuel), and you could’ve ran out. We had a goal to make it to the end there. I’m not sure how (Allgaier) made it. We’ll go back and look at some things. Still a solid finish for us.”
COLE CUSTER, NO. 00 STEWART-HAAS RACING FORD (THIRD-PLACE FINISHER): “It was an interesting race. I felt like we had a really fast car. In the second stage, we really woke the car up. That was the first time this year where we really got it working. That gave us some hope that we can take that to the other places. I was saving as much as I could in that last stage.”
TICKETS:
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