RICHMOND, Va. – So far, 2019 has been a star-crossed year for JR Motorsports driver Justin Allgaier, but, in fact, his run of bad luck started with the NASCAR Xfinity Series Playoffs last year.
Allgaier entered the 2018 postseason on a streak of 14 straight top-10 finishes that included victories at Iowa, Mid-Ohio, Road America and Indianapolis. He was the reigning regular-season champion with a boatload of Playoff points. Then Richmond happened.
With 24 laps left in last season’s opening Playoff race, the driver of the No. 7 JR Motorsports Chevrolet was wiped out when the Fords of Austin Cindric and Cole Custer collided. That accident set the tone for a disappointing postseason.
Though Allgaier survived the Round of 12, a crash on the first lap at Kansas doomed his prospects of advancing to the Championship 4 race at Homestead-Miami Speedway. And the streak of ill-fortune didn’t end there.
Three crashes and an engine failure led to four DNFs in the first 15 races of 2019. Though five stage wins and top-10 runs in the last 10 races of the regular season have kept Allgaier tied for fifth in the Playoff standings, even though he doesn’t have a victory this year.
And it serves as a confidence boost for the 33-year-old Illinois driver, who feels his team may be peaking at the right time.
“I always tell people, ‘I’d love to say that it can’t get any worse, but I can promise you it can get a lot worse,’” Allgaier said Thursday during NASCAR Xfinity Series Playoff media day interviews at Richmond Raceway. “That being said, the old saying, ‘I’d rather be lucky than good any day’ holds true.
“It’s just been one of those seasons for the record books—not in the way I wanted it to be. Last year was a record-book season for me, five wins, the whole deal. This year it’s been a record book; I’m not sure you could ask for so many different things to go wrong in the course of the season and make it through all of them.
“’Disappointed’ is probably an understatement, that we haven’t been back to Victory Lane, that we haven’t battled it out. But like I said, we’re peaking at the right time.”
And if Allgaier’s luck turns—for the better this time—he’s a leading candidate to join ‘Big 3’ drivers Christopher Bell, Tyler Reddick and Cole Custer in the Championship 4 event.
Source: Reid Spencer | NASCAR Wire Service
