JR Motorsports driver Justin Allgaier has worked for a decade to become an overnight sensation.
With four victories in his last 14 NASCAR Xfinity Series races, including wins in two of his last three starts, Allgaier has to be considered a favorite to win his first series championship.
In fact, Allgaier has been so successful in the No. 1 JRM Chevrolet that his boss, Dale Earnhardt Jr., recently took to Twitter to tout his driver as deserving of a Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series ride.
Not that Allgaier is a stranger to NASCAR’s top series. After five full years in the Xfinity Series starting tion 2009, he ran two full Cup seasons with HScott Motorsports in 2014-2015, scoring one top 10 (an eighth at Bristol) in 71 starts.
In 2016, Allgaier took a step back and signed on with JRM. Over the last two seasons, he has collected six of his nine career NXS victories.
“The one thing I’ll say is that I’m having a great time right now on the Xfinity side,” Allgaier said on Friday at Darlington Raceway, site of Saturday’s Sport Clips Haircuts VFW 200 (3:30 p.m. on NBC, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). “JR Motorsports has been a great home for me. To put myself back into contention to win races and championships, that’s huge.
“Do I want redemption on the Cup side? Absolutely. I personally don’t feel like I ever really got a fair shake on the Cup side, based on the circumstances that were dealt. That wasn’t the fault of anyone. It was a lot of moving pieces that had to come together to make the Cup program work the way we wanted it to, and that didn’t happen.
“Do I want redemption? Yeah. I want to go back to Cup at some point in my career… I think I could have success in the Cup series, but on the flip side of it, I’m not going to jeopardize what I’m doing right now just to take a seat and explore that option. It would have to be that perfect scenario.”
Greg is the author of "The Nuts and Bolts of NASCAR: The Definitive Viewers' Guide to Big-Time Stock Car Auto Racing" and has been published in major publications across the country including the Los Angeles Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He was also a contributor to Chicken Soup for the NASCAR Soul, published in 2010, and the Christmas edition in 2016. He wrote as the NASCAR, Formula 1, Auto Reviews and National Veterans Affairs Examiner for Examiner.com and has appeared on Fox News. He holds a BS degree in communications, a Masters degree in psychology and is currently a PhD candidate majoring in psychology. He is currently the weekend Motorsports Editor for Autoweek.
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