By Kirby Arnold, Special Contributor
AVONDALE, Ariz. – While others ahead of him pushed and leaned on each other through a couple of chaotic late restarts, Justin Allgaier put himself in perfect position to pounce.
Allgaier moved from sixth to third place with 15 laps remaining, then took the lead five laps later and won Saturday night’s GOVX 200 NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts at Phoenix Raceway.
He drove high around Jesse Love in to take the lead, and beat Love by less than half a second. Carson Kvapil finished third, Sheldon Creed third and Sam Mayer fourth.
“It was a great battle there with Jesse,” Allgaier said. “I just knew we had to go on that last restart.”
Has won a race 10 straight years in the series and, driving for JR Motorsports, he gave the organization its 107th all-time victory.
“It’s unreal what kind of an organization we have,” Allgaier said.
The race was uncommonly clean through the first two stages, with the only cautions coming for the stage breaks.
Then aggressive racing and the Phoenix dogleg made their presence.
Following a one-car incident when Lavar Scott spun off turn 2 that slowed the race with 40 laps remaining, the caution flew again because of a five-car crash involving William Sawalich, Brandon Jones, Taylor Gray and Blaine Perkins in turn 1.
When the race restarted – and another four-wide scramble into turn 1 ensued — with 15 to go, Allgaier rocketed from sixth place to third. Then he pulled alongside Love in turn 1 and down the backstraight, and pulled into the lead out of turn 4 with 10 to go.
“It really, truly is special,” Allgaier said. “We lost this race last year on a late restart.”
Love led 114 laps but was pressed much of the late stages of the race by Kvapil, who led 22 laps and was strongest on long green-flag runs.
“All day we had a really, really fast Chevrolet,” Kvapil said. “I could tell we had a really good car. I took the lead there in the last stage and I didn’t want a caution. I thought we had by far the best car long-run wise. But it is what it is. I felt like our car didn’t fire off as good as others (on restarts). That was kind of our only weak spot the whole race.”
Creed, who won his first career race at Atlanta two weeks ago, said the track changed through the race and he constantly was moving around to look for grip. The final restart was dicey.
“I was kind of sliding the back of the car around,” Creed said. “I got myself into the rubber off four and got into the wall.”
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