There’s no doubt Saturday’s Xfinity Series event at Nashville Superspeedway was a hot one, with temperatures breaking into the triple-digits with the heat index throughout the course of the afternoon.
The heat didn’t seem to both Justin Allgaier that much, as the 36-year-old stormed to his second victory of the season in dominating fashion, marking the sixth victory for JR Motorsports in the last seven events.
Allgaier led a race-high 134 laps in Saturday’s 188-lap event, taking the top spot for the final time with 40 laps to go, as AJ Allmendinger’s Kaulig Racing Chevrolet began to fade on older tires.
From that point, Allgaier was able to defend any minor advances made from the remainder of the field, crossing the start-finish line with an advantage of 4.5 seconds at the finish of the event.
Trevor Bayne – making his fifth of eight scheduled starts for Joe Gibbs Racing — finished in the runner-up position, with Riley Herbst, Ty Gibbs, and Sam Mayer all earning top-five results.
Gibbs and Mayer, who finished fourth and fifth, were lucky to keep their entries intact, after the Joe Gibbs Racing driver half-spun in turn four, and made significant contact with the right-front of Sam Mayer’s No. 1.
HOLY COW! ? @TyGibbs_ hangs on to his car with help from Sam Mayer. #NASCAR
? : @USA_Network pic.twitter.com/E1kF4Di9v1
— NASCAR on NBC (@NASCARonNBC) June 25, 2022
After winning Friday’s NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race at Nashville, Ryan Preece recorded a sixth-place finish in his last scheduled start this season for BJ McLeod Motorsports.
Jeffrey Earnhardt and Sam Hunt Racing had a stellar afternoon in Nashville with a seventh-place result, despite a spin in the race’s final stage. The result marks the fifth top-10 for Sam Hunt Racing and the third of 2022.
Austin Hill, Ryan Sieg, and Brett Moffitt rounded out the top-10 finishers, with Brandon Brown and Parker Retzlaff also finishing on the lead-lap in 11th and 12th.
Throughout most of the race, things looked to be going well for AJ Allmendinger and his Kaulig Racing teammates, having fought back into the top-10, after the trio was busted for speeding early in the race.
However, a strategy call gone wrong, forced Allmendinger, Hemric, Cassill, and others to hit pit road inside the race’s final 20 laps, costing them finishes inside the top 10. Allmendinger finished 16th, with Hemric and Cassill finishing 17th and 18th, respectively.
Despite a poor finish, Allmendinger leaves Nashville with a 25-point advantage over Ty Gibbs in the regular-season point standings, with Justin Allgaier, Noah Gragson, and Josh Berry rounding out the top five.
At the Playoff bubble, Ryan Sieg has a sizeable margin over Anthony Alfredo for the final spot in the NASCAR Xfinity Series Playoffs, with Brett Moffitt, Brandon Brown, Jeb Burton, and Sheldon Creed all in pursuit of that 13th spot.
Up next for the NASCAR Xfinity Series is a trip to Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin to the longest road course on the NASCAR schedule in Road America.
