By: Zach Catanzareti, Staff Writer
INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. — Through what has been a surprise winless season in the Xfinity Series, Justin Allgaier was darn close to ending that moniker Saturday at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Chasing leader Kyle Busch in the closing laps of the Indiana 250, Allgaier was unable to surpass Busch’s draft and settled for second spot.
The result was his 10th top five of 2019 and his ninth consecutive top-10 finish.
“Second hurts but I’ve had a lot of races this year that have gone way the other way,” Allgaier said. “For me, this is a good day for us. There is nothing to hang our head about, that’s the hard part. We did everything right today. It just wasn’t in the cards today.”
Battling and passing Busch at times throughout the 100-lap race, Allgaier proved to have the heat to match Busch’s No. 18. However, a late-race red flag injured Allgaier’s strong suit: Long runs.
The crash involved Christopher Bell and Tyler Reddick and nearly swept up Allgaier in the Turn-2 mess.
“I didn’t see that one coming,” he said. “The No. 20 looked like he had great balance all day and that thing just jumped out. I’ve not seen one come around that quick in a long time. I really thought I was going to be involved in that one.”
Before then, Allgaier was feeling good about his chances.
“With 20 to go I was thinking that if we don’t get any cautions, we are golden,” he said. “Old tires, I knew we were so good. That caution came out… I know how this goes.”
With Busch clearing Allgaier off the restart, the No. 7 JR Motorsports Chevrolet couldn’t contest Busch for the victory.
“I knew when Kyle got clear of me on the restart — It took pressure to really have handling issues and I just could never get close enough to put pressure on him like I wanted to,” he said.
“I knew at that point it was going to be really hard to pass Kyle. When he got clear of me, I knew it was going to take a mistake on his part.
“One thing I know about Kyle is that he is fantastic on late-race restarts. and very rarely does he make mistakes.”