CONCORD, N.C. — Drama, relief and heartbreak. All three hit an apex in the closing laps of Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series Round of 12 elimination race at the Charlotte Roval.
When the checkered flag waved after a wild 72 laps around the 2.32-mile road course, Justin Allgaier found himself on the right side of the elimination line by just four points.
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“We had a plan. We executed the plan to perfection today,” Allgaier said in relief after the race. “And really, that’s all you can ask for. And so for me, having that plan, I had 90 million things running through my head today. Honestly, the biggest one was the emotions of how I was going to tell my kids that we didn’t make the next round of the playoffs, right? Like that was really what I was the most worried about and to come out of here the way that we did, and to execute. I mean the last six weeks have been brutal. The thing that I hate about the playoffs, but also the thing that I love about the playoffs is that’s gone … that checkmark’s gone and we go into the next round and we reset on points and life’s good again.”
The last five weeks for Allgaier have arguably been the worst stretch of the No. 7 JR Motorsports driver’s lengthy and successful Xfinity Series career.
He entered Saturday’s race coming off finishes of 30th, 36th and 25th to find himself 18 points below the cutline entering Saturday.
After collecting a healthy 18 points in the first two stages, winning the latter of the two segments, Allgaier needed a top-10 result to advance his way to the Round of 8 on points and did just that with a gutsy seventh-place finish.
“This team has such a never-give-up attitude,” Allgaier said. “The effort and time that’s gone in this week, last week. I mean we’ve wrecked six or seven race cars in the last seven weeks and have nothing to show for it, and they’ve never quit. They’ve kept pushing and kept digging. Today was just a testament of that. I got a little emotional on the radio when I thought the race was over the first time because you build all this up in your head and you get to that point and you’re not really sure how it’s gonna play out. When I thought it played out the way we wanted it to, it was great. Then we were going to have to have overtime. I was really nervous, but it worked out even better because obviously that put Sam [Mayer) in.”
Mayer, Allgaier’s teammate and needing a win to advance, found a second life after an overtime restart and the No. 1 JRM wheelman scooted by Parker Kligerman with two laps to go to score his third win and secure a Round of 8 berth.
With Mayer’s win, however, it left the road-course phenom Shane van Gisbergen the first driver out from advancing to the semi-final round.
Van Gisbergen looked to be in prime position to be victorious from the pole but during a caution with 13 laps to go, the No. 97 Chevrolet team chose not to pit and stay out on old tires while most of the playoff field pitted.
Within a few laps of the following restart, van Gisbergen was quickly caught and passed by Kligerman for the lead with eight to go and ultimately settled for a third-place finish, coming up just two points short of Jesse Love for the final transfer spot.
“You can’t just blame it on today,” Van Gisbergen told NASCAR.com. “You know, last week hurts and then the guys who were in must-wins executed today. But if we had three good weekends, we would have been okay.”
A rookie in the Xfinity Series, the 35-year-old Kiwi navigated his inaugural NASCAR season with three wins to make the Xfinity Playoffs and touted his learning of ovals as a big takeaway from 2024.
“I think I’ve made really good progression on ovals,” Van Gisbergen said. “Better and better. Kansas was my best mile-and-a-half by a long way. Yeah, I think I’m getting a lot better.”
With Allgaier, Sammy Smith and now Mayer, three of the JRM Chevys are still in the hunt for the 2024 Xfinity Series championship and while only one of them could win the driver’s championship in Phoenix, Allgaier has high hopes for the four remaining races, thanks to the points reset heading to Las Vegas Motor Speedway next weekend.
“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I still believe we could have all three of our Camaros in the final four,” Allgaier said. “Just so proud of this team and the effort, and we’ll definitely sleep a lot better tonight than I’ve been sleeping the last five or six weeks.”
