Justin Allgaier was able to claim his fourth career win at Darlington Raceway and his second win of the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series season on Saturday (March 21).
Allgaier passed Brandon Jones on the last restart of the race to win the Sport Clips Haircuts VFW Help a Hero 200.
It’s Allgaier’s second win in the last three races, as he also won at Phoenix Raceway. But he was not the dominant car of the race.
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After winning last weekend’s race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Kyle Larson swept the stages and led a race-high 107 laps. But lost the lead on pit road after a caution came out with 24 laps to go. Larson had to settle for a fourth-place finish.
“We have not been the best on pit road all year,” Allgaier told The CW. “These guys have never quit. They have gone to work. They have never given up, and they were on top of it all day on pit road.
“We definitely weren’t the best all day. Kyle [Larson] was amazing, had us covered.”
Jones finished second, Christopher Bell was third and Carson Kvapil finished behind Larson in fifth. Corey Day, Sheldon Creed, Parker Retzlaff, Sammy Smith and Sam Mayer finished in the sixth-to-10th spots, respectively.
“That’s kind of how racing goes sometimes, a lot of my Darlingtons typically go,” Larson told The CW. “Win the first two stages and lose control at the end and can’t regain. So that sucks, but I had a lot of fun today.”
One contender who struggled on Saturday was Austin Hill, who slapped the wall early in the first stage after getting loose while battling with William Sawalich. Hill had to make a pit stop with eight laps to go in that opening stage after a tire went down.
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Hill later got caught up in the only crash of the day that brought out the caution late in the race. Dean Thompson made contact with Kyle Sieg, sending the No. 28 into the outside wall. Lavar Scott and Alex Labbe were also involved. Hill finished in 35th, five laps down.
With the win, Allgaier opened up his points lead over Jesse Love, who finished 11th, by 52 points. Kvapil jumped up two spots and now sits third in the standings.
Darlington O’Reilly Results
The NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series will return to action on Saturday, March 28, at Martinsville Speedway at 3:30 p.m. ET for the seventh race of the season. Coverage of this race will be broadcast on The CW.
