After a pair of opportunities, third time is the charm for Allgaier in The LiUNA! in Las Vegas
By Kyle Foster, photo courtesy of Eric Thompson (Shamboozled.com)
Twitter/X: @NapaKyle @NapaSportsNews
Las Vegas-When you always run up front, sooner or later a race is going to go your way. It’s like sitting down to play a card game – even if you don’t have a good hand – you will eventually.
In Saturday afternoon’s The LiUNA NASCAR Xfinity Series race, Justin Allgaier put a good old-fashioned whooping on the field to pick up his first win at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
On his way to the win, the JR Motorsports driver led a race-high 102 laps over 3 times out front. This is also his 26th win in the Xfinity Series. This is now his 9th consecutive season winning in the series.
“It’s incredible,” Allgaier said of finally winning in Vegas. “I don’t know the stat. I probably should, but I think this is maybe the first place that I live laps in the NASCAR Xfinity Series. But this was the first racetrack that I had that like light switch moment, where I just felt comfortable, I felt good, I felt like I could compete at a high level. I just felt like this place clicked for me, and I’ve loved it ever since.”
Though he had the dominant car from the green, he had to hold on late in a battle with Aric Almirola who finished second. The two were the class of the field all day.
This win was a long time coming this season for Allgaier who had a chance to win at Atlanta and then had the dominant car last week in Phoenix before a late caution ruined the chance for the win. But it was also just a matter of time until the defending series champion got the win and locked himself into the playoffs.
One of the main reasons why Almirola was the fact that he didn’t have much-needed clean air. This made his car not handle nearly as well.
“Just clean air,” Almirola said. “I think not being able to wrap the line down in three and four with no clean air on the car was tough. So just couldn’t build a run to him. I was a little better than one and two, but he was definitely taking my line away. I was having to run a lot higher on the racetrack, and then in three and four, the only lane you could run was on the bottom.”
Even with the disappointment of being so close, this was Almirola’s best finish at Las Vegas. It’s a track where he historically hasn’t been as good. He also led 51 circuits in the event, which was second behind Allgaier.
“Well, I think it’s really just the preparation,” Almirola added. “I’ve never been that great here, honestly. This is not one of my best race tracks, but Joe Gibbs racing at times has been good here, and then at times has been off. And I felt like I learned a lot and was able to help kind of understand what I needed to be better here last year, and honestly, (in) the fall race, we were probably the best car, and I lost power steering about halfway through the race.”
Jesse Love finished third followed by Richard Childress teammate Austin Hill in fourth. Sam Mayer rounded out the top 5. All of these guys were well behind the top 2.
Sammy Smith and Connor Zilisch were in contention early before penalties on pit road ended their afternoons. Zilisch even led 2 times for 28 laps in the race for the first time in Las Vegas at just 18 years old.
The NASCAR Xfinity Series will be back in action next Saturday from Homestead-Miami.
