Justin Allgaier came oh so close of scoring two consecutive wins at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The JR Motorsports No. 7 driver qualified eighth and had a strong car all day long, finishing second.
Allgaier remained consistent in Stage 1 and finished sixth. He was able to get out front to the lead when Stage 2 began and took the lead on Lap 53 for nine laps. He battled with the No. 2 of Tyler Reddick for several laps, changing the lead multiple times.
Allgaier was able to get the best of Reddick, taking the lead and taking the Stage 2 win for 10 championship playoff points.
After the stage break, the JR Motorsports driver remained out front in hopes of getting his second Indy victory. However, a new driver came to challenge him and that was All-time Xfinity win leader Kyle Busch. Like Reddick, the two would battle back and forth, hoping to get the best of one another.
At one point, Allgaier got around Busch and led for 12 laps before the caution flew on Lap 80 to bunch the field back up again. As they always say, “cautions breed cautions” which most certainly came into play in the remaining laps.
A late-race restart came with four laps to go, with Allgaier on the outside front row and Busch on the inside row. Busch got a better push then Allgaier did off the start. Despite staying close behind the leader, Allgaier scored a disappointing second-place finish.
“The team deserves all the credit, JR Motorsports, Hendrick engine shop, everybody that touched these racecars,” Allgaier told PRN Radio. “You know, to come here to almost win three years in a row, almost back to back for ourselves with the 7 team says a lot about our program. Our car was so good on the long run. I knew those guys didn’t have anything for us on the long run, I knew if we could get out front we were going to be good and cautions breed cautions at the end.”
“Unfortunately, I couldn’t catch Kyle (Busch). Kyle and all the Gibbs cars had fantastic cars all weekend. We saw it with their qualifying efforts. It’s just disappointing, I thought we were going to be there.”
The second-place finish earned Allgaier his 10th top five of the season and his third second-place finish this season. The JR Motorsports driver sits fourth in the points standings, 138 behind leader Tyler Reddick.
