It’s a Dinger: AJ Allmedinger punches ticket to Championship 4 with dominant win in Ambetter Health 302
By Kyle Foster, photo courtesy of Eric Thompson (shamboozled.com)
Twitter/X: @NapaKyle @NapaSportsNews
Las Vegas-When it was announced that AJ Allmendinger would be returning to the NASCAR Xfinity Series in 2024, everyone expected him to be a contender for the series title.
However, many people didn’t expect it to happen in this fashion. The veteran was one of the under-the-radar drivers all season before coming up clutch to win the Ambetter Health 302 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and punch his ticket to the Championship 4 in Phoenix in three weeks time.
It was the first win for the 42-year-old driver from Los Gatos in the series since last season at Nashville Superspeedway. This is a span of 32 races in between victories.
“What an up and down year,” Allmendinger said. “What a crazy year. This is a racetrack that we felt like if we could make it to the round of eight, we’ve been historically pretty good at.”
The Dinger did it in a dominating fashion. He led three times for a total of 102 laps, pacing the field. However, the race still came down to a gree-white-checkered finish and a massive restart that saw Allmendinger get a nose ahead going into turn 1 at lap 200. From there, it was smooth sailing to the victory.
He has also won a NASCAR Xfinity race in every year since 2019.
Over the final stage, Allmendinger had the best car as he was able to drive from 9th to the win. Most of this speed came when the track changed from daytime to night and his car really came to life.
“I won’t lie, the weather conditions probably helped us,” Almmending pointed out. “We’ve struggled here in the summer race when it’s hot and slick.”
With the win, Allmendinger and his Kaulig Racing team get an extra two weeks to prepare for Phoenix. The Kaulig 16 team has also been getting better over each of the final few weeks here as well. After all, they just finished second last weekend at the Charlotte ROVAL and have now put together a pair of top-two finishes.
“This was a big weekend, and it’s easier to say that sitting here,” Allmendinger explained. “But just to show up and say this is what we need out of the car, to go execute it, have the speed, and then execute the race, that gives us two weeks to prepare for Pheonix.”
On the other end of the top two finishers is Ryan Sieg. He is in the middle of a career year and came up short once again in his family-owned car.
“I didn’t execute on the restart and spun the tire, wasn’t able to stay beside him,” Sieg said of the final restart that decided the race.
Despite this heartbreaker, it would appear that a win should be in the cards for Sieg. He got to second following a stop on lap 172, which gave him the spot on the front row.
“Ah, it’s coming,” Sieg added. “Just got to clean up a few things. A 1,000 things through the race and things could’ve gone different.”
Rounding out the top 3 finishers was Justin Allgaier. He came in with a points lead and won the second stage. But when debris got on the grill and the alternator went out.
Finishing 4th was Chandler Smith. This was his 7th straight top-5 finish, but the win seems to be eluding him at Las Vegas which is a track he is good at.
“I mean, it’s good for sure, we got another top five,” Smith explained. “That’s great, but we need to be better. We hold ourselves to a high standard when we come to this racetrack as an organization. We’re good here, and I’m really good here as well. So we just missed it a little bit today, and that’s okay, and we maximized our day.”
After Las Vegas, the round of 8 points sees Allgaier at +32, Cole Custer at +16, and Chandler Smith at +6. Those behind the cut are Austin Hill (-8), Jesse Love (-13), Sam Mayer (-23), and Sammy Smith (-53) in must-win territory.
The NASCAR Xfinity Series Round of 8 continues next week at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
