By Matt Courson, Staff Writer
AVONDALE, Ariz. — When the checkered flag waved on the 2024 NASCAR Xfinity Series season Saturday at Phohenix Raceway, Justin Allgaier finished second in the race – but it was enough to claim his first ever NASCAR championship. Austin Hill, A.J. Allmendinger, and Cole Custer walked away without the hardware.
Cole Custer (8th)
“What it came down to for us was that restart when the 21 stayed out on older tires. Honestly, it just came down to who you were behind. He made his car really wide, very hard to get by which is his right. We’re all going for a championship, but that ended up screwing us worse than it did the 7 (Allgaier) and the 7 was able to slip by.
“That’s what sucks. I really wanted to win this championship for SHR and finish it out strong, but it just wasn’t meant to be. It just sucks that it comes down to tire strategies and situational restarts and things like that, but the 7 car was great all day.”
A.J. Allmendinger (9th)
“Today was disappointing. I’m not sure what else we can do from a preparation and effort standpoint, honestly. We spent three weeks working on the car and countless hours in sim.
Just was never there all weekend, honestly. Just fought hard. Thought maybe we would steal the team championship on the way the strategy was playing out, but figured a yellow was going to come out at some point and we were just kind of hanging on at that point.”
Austin Hill (10th)
“I could have had a shot, because we were running some decent lap times there, and when the caution came out, I knew we were going to be at a tire deficit, and we had to try something.
We put the right side tires on it, and just got down into 1, and I drove as deep as I could just trying to protect from out back and over-slipped — the front tires started sliding, and then I saw the 00 trying to get to my right rear, and I didn’t want him to get to my outside.
“So kind of slid up the track, and then he got in the back of me. And then coming off the corner, I was sideways and then allowed the 7 to get by both of us because I couldn’t put the throttle down. A lot of hard racing out there.”