DOVER, Del. – Justin Allgaier rebounded from a disappointing 28th place finish last weekend at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway with a runner-up finish in Saturday afternoon’s Allied Steel Buildings 200 at Dover (Del.) International Speedway, his best result since the season-opening race at Daytona International Speedway in February.
Allgaier qualified second on Saturday morning and was able to maintain track position finishing third at the end of Stage 1.
Quickly moving into the second spot early into Stage 2, Allgaier’s No. 7 BRANDT Chevrolet Camaro would begin to plow the center of the corner causing him to slide back to fourth where he maintained through the end of Stage 2.
With crew chief Jason Burdett making changes for the third and final stage, Allgaier with a lift from his pit crew was able to restart third but was shuffled back to fourth but when a caution waved on Lap 154, the opportunity knocked for the field to take advantage and the JR Motorsports team were ready to strike.
With tires, fuel and a chassis adjustment to loosen up his race car, Allgaier utilized the outside lane to his advantage to pass front-runners Cole Custer and Tyler Reddick.
Allgaier even pounded the backstretch wall off Turn 2 on Lap 181 while battling for the runner-up spot, but luckily was able to continue without any serious side effects.
“Hats off to everyone at JR Motorsports because obviously the car took a beating but kept going,” said Allgaier. “Our Brandt Professional Agricultural Camaro was good today, it wasn’t great. I wanted to try and battle with Christopher (Bell) there at the end, but we were just off a little bit all day.
“All in all, still a good day, top-two. We’ve had the speed; we just haven’t had the luck. So, today, we had some luck with it and were just a little bit short on Victory Lane.”
Allgaier thought his luck came up short late in the race while battling Reddick for second, luck ultimately prevailed.
“That next-to-last restart I tried to get in front of Tyler (Reddick) coming off Turn 2 and as soon as he crossed over, my car kinda took off and pounded the fence really hard, I wasn’t sure we were going to be able to keep going. A good weekend. Solid day, we needed some luck and today was a good day for us.”
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
