Justin Allgaier won the NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Michigan International Speedway on Saturday (Aug. 17) after holding serve during a hectic overtime finish.
A hard crash for Kyle Weatherman set up an overtime restart, and after a small red flag period for rain, the race went back to green.
Allgaier set sail for the lead, while others jockeyed for positions behind him. Then, after the No. 7 took the white flag, there was a big accident on the backstretch in which Carson Kvapil spun and hit the wall. While trying to avoid, Chandler Smith and Kyle Sieg spun down onto the apron. Sieg ended up flipping over on his roof, and he slid all the way into the grass before flipping back over on his wheels.
With the caution out, Allgaier was scored as the leader and took home his second win of the season, his first at Michigan and the 25th of his Xfinity career.
“I feel like I had to win, ’cause Dale (Earnhardt) Jr.’s running Bristol, we all know he’s probably gonna win that race after last year,” Allgaier told NBC Sports. “Just cannot say thank you enough to this team, all these guys standing right here. The effort that’s been put in has been incredible. We did not show up to Indianapolis 2, 3 weeks ago like we wanted to, and these guys have worked tirelessly through this break. … It’s truly special.”
Sheldon Creed finished second for the 11th in his Xfinity career, adding to his record of most runner-up finishes without a win. John Hunter Nemechek took third, while Anthony Alfredo and Sammy Smith rounded out the top five.
Noah Gragson, Matt DiBenedetto, Taylor Gray, Caesar Bacarella and AJ Allmendinger completed the top 10.
Stage one featured a couple of solo spins by Taylor Gray and Sheldon Creed, the latter of whom was leading the race when he got loose off of Riley Herbst. Additionally, after a restart, Sammy Smith had to make an unscheduled pit stop for a tire going down.
The battle for the stage one win picked up on a restart with about three laps remaining. Herbst restarted out front, but Justin Allgaier was able to get to the lead with some help from Ryan Sieg. Then, on the final lap of the first stage, Sieg muscled by Allgaier to claim the stage one win.
The red flag came out for precipitation after the stage ended, but after a few minutes, the drivers returned to their cars and the race went back to yellow.
Shortly after the next restart, Austin Hill slid down from the top lane and attempted to get in line in front of Carson Kvapil. He wasn’t quite clear and spun in the grass without any other contact.
One of the bigger incidents involved several of the top runners, including Herbst, Ryan Sieg, Brandon Jones, Sam Mayer and Cole Custer. Herbst went below the No. 39 of Sieg to try and pass him, and he attempted to slide back up in front of Sieg after Herbst’s spotter told him he was clear. It appeared that Jones bump-drafted Sieg just as Herbst moved up, and the No. 98 got turned and hit the outside wall hard.
Mayer and Custer ended up colliding with Jones as the No. 9 spun down the track.
Another fairly big wreck occurred when Lawless Alan, making his Xfinity debut, got loose while running three-wide and spun in turn 1, tagging Jeb Burton and hitting Daniel Dye.
During stage three, Kvapil passed John Hunter Nemechek for the lead in a strategy play. The No. 88 team hoped that rain would come before he had to pit, but it stayed away for much of the race, and they called Kvapil down pit road.
Just before Kvapil pitted, Allgaier got by Nemechek, Creed and Sammy Smith and began to pull away with the lead.
Then, everything changed when Weatherman had a right-front tire go down and hit the turn 2 wall hard.
After another brief pause for rain showers, the race went into overtime. Allgaier pulled away from the field on the final lap, and he took home the win under caution after the big wreck with Kyle Sieg.
Xfinity Results From Michigan
Five races remain before the Xfinity playoffs begin. Next week, drivers will tackle Daytona International Speedway to potentially sneak their way into the playoffs.
The Wawa 250 runs on Friday, Aug. 23 at 7:30 p.m. ET and airs on USA Network.
Joy joined Frontstretch in 2019 as a NASCAR DraftKings writer, expanding to news and iRacing coverage in 2020. She's currently an assistant editor and involved with photos, social media and news editing. A California native, Joy was raised watching motorsports and started watching NASCAR extensively in 2001. She earned her B.A. degree in Liberal Studies at California State University Bakersfield in 2010.