It was Kyle Larson’s race to lose in Miami. It wasn’t just a strong run, it was utter domination: Larson had built up a 19.5-second lead and had lapped all but five cars when the caution came out with seven seconds to go. But that caution ended up being Justin Allgaier’s chance.
On the restart, Larson was pushed too hard and too early by Sam Mayer beyond him, causing him to spin his tires and get a bad launch. That gave Austin Hill and Justin Allgaier the chance to get by on the outside line, and in the final two laps of Overtime Allgaier got around Hill as well for the win.
“Obviously the 17 car was the dominant car, they had the race,” Allgaier described of Kyle Larson driving the No. 17 Chevrolet. “That last restart when the 41 [Mayer] chose the inside I thought maybe we have a shot at it, and when he hit the 17 and spun the tires I was like, this is just a gift right here. I knew we had to race it out with Austin, but what a battle. What a race.”
The win is extra sweet because it comes with a $100,000 bonus courtesy of the Xfinity Series Dash 4 Cash. Allgaier’s no stranger to winning these bonuses in his career, but Miami is not a track he expected to do so at.
Of the four drivers who qualified, by being the highest full-time drivers in last week’s race, Allgaier had the worst record at Homestead without even a single top-five finish to his credit. With the win, he now has more than a top-five.
“The emotional rollercoaster is something I can’t even describe,” Allgaier said. “To come to this racetrack for years and to be, quite honest with you, awful. I think arguably this is my worst racetrack on the schedule.
“Jim Pohlman [crewchief] and this whole team all week have just talked about how if we put ourselves in the right position and we’re there at the end of the race, we can win this.”
Larson ultimately finished fourth, beyond Mayer and Hill. He was frustrated with Mayer for the push on the restart, which he described as an opportunist driver hoping to get a jump and go three-wide into the first corner.
“From my perspective,” a frustrated Larson said, “he just lagged back and slammed the shit out of me and had my rear tires off the ground. Just going down the whole frontstretch spinning as he’s still underneath me.
“It is what it is, I probably would have been similar to him had I been in that position. He just hit me so hard and it took my rear tires off the ground,” he said.
It was a frustrating win to a dominant performance in which Larson led 132 of 201 laps on the night. But it was also frustrating since Larson won the Truck Series race last night and had a real shot at going for the triple by winning all three national series races in one weekend, a rare feat. Now, no matter what happens in the Cup Series tomorrow, he won’t get to.
Sam Mayer, who finished ahead of Larson in second, admitted he made a mistake which hurt him too. After finishing the second stage in second and trying to chase down Kyle Larson for much of the third, he was unhappy to finish second behind another driver altogether.
“I mean, I was going to finish second anyway,” Mayer said. “I’m kind of frustrated with myself, I really kind of botched that last restart. I obviously kind of messed up the 17 and gave the outside lane the time to jump the inside lane, so I kind of sold that.
“To finish second is a good day, we had an amazing points day. But given the opportunity we had there at the end and finishing second, messing up the last restart, is a bummer,” Mayer concluded. “Second just isn’t good enough, on the front end or the back end.”
Third-place Hill, on the other hand, gave a little blame to Larson for making it difficult for anyone to restart alongside or behind him.
“That restart was kind of tough, the 17 [Larson] was kind of playing games there,” Hill said. “He would brake-check and I would brake-check and then we went.”
As for Hill’s own finish, though he grabbed the lead on the outside he didn’t hold onto it for long. Allgaier got to his inside in turn one on the first lap of Overtime. He was able to stay alongside for the rest of the lap, but when they came into turn one for the final time Hill washed up the track. Not only did he lose the lead to Allgaier but he lost second to Mayer as well and had to settle for third.
“Just got really deep into [turn] 1 just to make sure the 7 [Allgaier] didn’t get underneath me, and I thought I was going to be in the preferred lane coming to the white [flag], and I tried to put it on his door and it kind of got of on the splitter and it just shot up the track,” Hill described”.
“Man, unfortunate. We know we could have won that race, obviously, we were in the thick of it. Just, unfortunately, we lost the race and the hundred ground. I’m pretty ticked off, but once I get back to the lounge and cool down I’ll be fine. We’ll just keep digging going forward: we’ve had speed every week and we’ll end up in victory lane eventually.”
Mayer’s teammate Sheldon Creed rounded out the top five. Jesse Love, Brandon Jones, Nick Sanchez, Daniel Dye, and Carson Kvapil all earned top-ten finishes.
The Xfinity Series returns on Saturday, March 29th at Martinsville Speedway. It’s another Dash 4 Cash race: Allgaier, Mayer, Hill, and Creed will be competing for the money in that race on the back of their finishes at Homestead.
