It was Justin Allgaier’s race to lose at Phoenix Raceway as the laps wound down. He had a two-second margin over second-place Aric Almirola with ten laps to go, and while Almirola was closing it wasn’t going to be enough. But then the caution flag flew and the race went into Overtime.
And what an Overtime. Allgaier didn’t get a great jump, leaving him side-by-side with Almirola for the first lap, so he ran him up the track in the first turn. That opened the door for the cars behind to go four wide, with Alex Bowman sneaking through the middle. Almirola set off in hot pursuit of Bowman, getting to his inside in the final set of corners and washing Bowman up into the wall.
When the dust settled, Aric Almirola was the winner in the Xfinity Series at Vegas, by just 0.045 seconds.
It was Almirola’s eighth career win in the series he now competes in part-time, a win made even more special by having the late JD Gibbs’ name on the side of the car. Almirola explained that it all came down to the last caution.
“I felt like I was better than the 7 [of Allgaier] early in the race. They had a great car, we had a great car, and it was just an awesome battle. At the end there, we were running them down pretty fast and the caution came out and I was like, oh yeah, now we’ve got a chance,” he explained.
“We went down into [Turn] 1 and he just got loose under me and kind of ran me all the way up into the marbles, and I was just thankful that I got my tires cleaned coming back through [Turns] 3 and 4 and it gave me an opportunity to get to the 17 [of Bowman].
“And then we out drag-raced him to the start/finish line. And it was exciting, I know the fans got their money’s worth,” Almirola concluded.
For Bowman’s part, he wasn’t unhappy with the decision to try to run the outside through the final turns despite Almirola being able to get to the inside and run him up to the wall.
“I don’t know. I think if I enter on the bottom, I don’t even make it to Turn 4,” Bowman said, referencing getting pushed out of the way. “Just part of racing sometimes. I hate that our racecar’s destroyed. But had a shot at it and that’s all you can ask for sometimes.”
He was still proud of that four-wide move through the middle that put him in position to get the win either way.
“Yeah, everybody was kind of using each other up and I snuck through the middle without getting run into,” Bowman explained. “Just kind of carried me off into [Turn] 1 and I was about spinning out down there, I figured the same would happen here. Unfortunately just a couple of feet short.”
It was a strong performance in a one-off start for Bowman, moonlighting from the Cup Series in the Hendrick Motorsports Xfinity Series machine. He will compete in NASCAR’s top series at the same track on Sunday.
Brandon Jones ended up fourth and Ryan Sieg finished fourth, a quiet but very strong day for RSS Racing program. After entering Overtime with the lead, Justin Allgaier came home fifth.
He explained that he didn’t intend to wash up into Almirola in the first corner on the restart, but said that he ran out of grip.
“I don’t know,” said a dejected Allgaier. “When the caution came out, I knew we were a sitting duck. They blew all the marbles off the top [of the track] right in front of us leaders, and we just picked up a ton of trash on our tires. Just got down to [Turn] 1 and didn’t have any grip.
“Obviously tried to give it away for both myself and Aric,” he said sarcastically, “and he was able to come back and still get the win. Hats off to those guys, they had a really good car all day.”
It was a very disappointing finish for Allgaier after winning the second stage and leading 130 laps on the day.
“I thought we had the car to beat there and this one’s going to hurt. I feel like the last three laps here have hated me over the last couple of years. Even though we won a championship last fall, it seems like no matter the last couple of laps have not been ideal. We’ll go back to the drawing board,” Allgaier said. “Just really sad.”
Rookie Taylor Gray, Sam Mayer, rookie Christian Eckes, Jesse Love, and rookie Nick Sanchez all earned top-ten finishes.
The race featured six cautions, four of which were for cause. The biggest impact involved three cars battling for the top five when Austin Hill shot up the track and collected Sheldon Creed and Dean Thompson en route to a hard impact with the outside wall. Hill explained that he hit the inside wall which is right on the apex of that corner.
“I’m so sorry about that, guys,” Hill said immediately over the radio. “I was following the guy in front of me and I hit the…inside wall. That was a stupid mistake.”
The Xfinity Series returns on Saturday, March 15th at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
RACE RESULTS
- Christopher Bell’s Streak Comes to an End in Bad Day for JGR - March 16, 2025
- Justin Allgaier Holds Off Almirola for First Vegas Win in the Xfinity Series - March 15, 2025
- Bell is No Longer a Dark Horse—He’s the One to Beat - March 13, 2025