Justin Allgaier had a tough task in the final stage of the NASCAR Xfinity race at Michigan Saturday. With rain looming, Allgaier was able to hold off Sheldon Creed for his second win of the season and the 25th of his career, moving him to tenth on the all-time series wins list.
While many of the leaders stayed out gambling on the rain when the caution flew early in Stage 3, Allgaier’s No. 7 team chose to pit and put in enough fuel to make it to the end. From there, he climbed from outside the top ten to the battle for the lead.
With Carson Kvapil in the lead but without enough fuel to make the finish, Allgaier’s real battle was with the Joe Gibbs Racing cars of John Hunter Nemechek and Sheldon Creed just behind. With 17 laps to go, he was able to get around both, and when Carson Kvapil had to give in and pit for fuel, Allgaier inherited the lead on track.
Allgaier’s road to victory wasn’t totally paved, however, as Kyle Weatherman brought out the caution with eight laps to go after blowing a tire and hitting the wall hard. That set up an Overtime finish with a delay for a short rain shower that was cleaned up with just a 14-minute red flag.
Allgaier managed to hold off Creed behind him in the Overtime restart and took the white flag before a huge wreck on the backstretch ended the race under caution, finally shoring up his win.
“I feel like I had to win because Dale Jr’s running Bristol, and we all know he’s probably going to win that race after last year,” he joked, referencing his car owner’s strong run at the short track last year that was cut short by a fire in the car. “Just cannot say thank you to this team. We did not show up at Indianapolis two weeks ago like we wanted to, and these guys have worked tirelessly through this break.
“When you’re in Michigan, the manufacturer’s backyard, these fans – I could hear them all chanting whenever we were sitting in the car in the red flag. I hope that whoever got turned over is okay, and we’ll go on and celebrate this one for a while.”
The turnover that Allgaier referenced was experienced by Kyle Sieg, who went up and over and slid on his roof before fortunately ending up on his wheels to get out of the car. Carson Kvapil, running in the middle of the pack after pitting, was turned by strong pushes to his rear, collecting Sieg and Chandler Smith. NASCAR immediately threw the caution to freeze the rest of the field to stop them from piling in, ending the race.
Of note, Sieg’s car carried a special sponsor: Bailey Excavating, making its first return to the sport since sponsoring JD McDuffie before his tragic passing in a crash in 1991, as Brock Beard highlighted.
Runner-up Sheldon Creed was all over the field. After starting from the pole and leading every lap, he spun in Turn 3 when Riley Herbst got to his inside and packed air on the side of his car without making any contact. Creed kept the car off the wall, spinning right onto pit road, and continued, fighting back through the field to battle for the lead at the end.
It’s yet another runner-up finish for the driver, who now has eleven of those without a win.
“This one might have frustrated me the most out of all of them so far,” he said of his runner-up record. “I had a Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota GR Supra as fast as Xfinity internet today, and led the beginning, got spun there and rallied back.”
He explained that he saved too much fuel in the closing laps behind teammate John Hunter Nemechek in the No. 20 before he was able to push on Allgaier.
“I was probably too conservative behind the 20 trying to save fuel. I was a couple, few laps short on fuel there and the 7 was in a little bit better spot, and once the 7 got around both of us,” he said, “I know I needed to go. I probably set behind the 20 another two laps and then charged and was running the 7 down. Just had a really good car, but that caution for rain came at a bad time for us.”
Nemechek ended up third with a Stage 2 win to boot. Anthony Alfredo and Sammy Smith rounded out the top five. Noah Gragson, Matt DiBenedetto, Taylor Gray, Caesar Bacarella, and AJ Allmendinger all earned top-ten finishes.
Ryan Sieg won Stage 1. He was however involved in one of the largest incidents of the race midway through Stage 2 that hurt his car. As Riley Herbst tried to get around Sieg, who was on older tires and was struggling with handling, Herbst’s spotter told him he was clear when he wasn’t and Herbst moved across Sieg’s bumper. The incident collected Brandon Jones and others. Those included Herbst’s Stewart-Haas Racing Cole Custer, with both SHR drivers taken out of contention.
“We had a really fast race car. I thought we had a shot at it there,” Herbst said. “I was picking them off on the restarts and working my way back up. I thought it was coming to us. I thought we were better than a lot of people in front of us.
“We had a huge run on the 39 off of Turn 2 and I went to his inside and thought I was clear. Obviously, I wasn’t clear. It is a bummer deal. We will bounce back at Daytona and try to get another win.”
The Xfinity Series returns for a night race at Daytona on Friday, August 23rd.
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