Joey Logano‘s win at Las Vegas Motor Speedway to clinch a Championship 4 spot last Sunday (Oct. 20) may not have been much of a surprise by historical standards, but it was when considering his year-long performance in 2024 NASCAR Cup Series season.
However, Logano’s capitalization on the opportunity was a follow-up act to what happened in the NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Las Vegas the night prior (Oct. 19).
AJ Allmendinger quietly limped into the Round of 8 after finishing outside the top 10 twice in this year’s Round of 12.
But what started out as a whisper from the veteran entering the semi-final round quickly escalated into a roar when the dust settled in Vegas.
Allmendinger didn’t just win the race, he flat-out dominated.
In the first 29 races of the season, Allmendinger had led 147 laps, with 70 of those coming late in the regular season at Atlanta Motor Speedway. At Las Vegas, he nearly led three-quarters of that total in one setting, pacing the field for 102 of the 201 laps. A hard charge by Ryan Sieg was negated by a late caution, allowing Allmendinger to hold on and put the exclamation point on his biggest statement of the year.
Let’s be blunt. By the Los Gatos, Calif., native’s standards, 2024 had been a disappointment. With just three races remaining in the season, Allmendinger will have career-lows in nearly every category among his full-time Xfinity seasons. His seven top fives are less than half of his previous low (17), and his 12.8 average finish is three positions worse than his current low mark (9.2 in 2021).
Yet, what Allmendinger has been doing is something that we have seen several drivers accomplish across all three national series time after time: getting hot at the right time.
Logano is a perfect example at the Cup level, with his two titles being trademarks of that notion. In both of his title campaigns, the No. 22 team became dangerous by winning the opening race of the Round of 8, which allowed the team to invest more time into the setup for the championship race.
The same can be said now for Allmendinger and Kaulig Racing. No, he likely won’t enter Phoenix Raceway as the favorite, nor does winning at Las Vegas seal him as the driver to beat, but it definitely makes the competition squirm a little bit that the No. 16 team is ahead of the game.
Allmendinger’s win certainly turned the tide of his season, a common factor of the playoffs. But it didn’t come by an overtime Hail Mary attempt, nor by backing his way into a win, nor by being in the right place, right time at a superspeedway. Instead, he did it by displaying the most speed he’s had all season on an intermediate track.
It’s a far cry from what 2024 has looked like at times for the 42-year-old. He’s shown solid speed on intermediate tracks this season, but still lacked the speed of many of his top competitors. Short tracks have not yielded great results, and the days where Kaulig constantly perplexed the field with superspeedway dominance are behind us for the time being.
Even more of a sign of Allmendinger’s struggles this year is the fact that he went winless on road courses, a track type that accounts for 11 of his 18 career wins in the series. Much of that can be attributed to the arrival of his teammate, Shane van Gisbergen, a three-time Australian Supercars champion. All three of van Gisbergen’s wins this season came on road courses and at the expense of Allmendinger’s prowess.
Despite this, what the playoffs have proven time and time again is that if one can survive and cash in at the right time, it changes the course of the season. Van Gisbergen’s three wins weren’t enough to propel him forward in the playoffs. Allmendinger found a way to get to this point, and now he has a shot at his first title.
Not only was the win a shot in the arm for Allmendinger — it reinvigorated a Kaulig team looking for a boost. The organization put on a clinic on how to grow a team a proper way in the first few years of its inception. They were patient, set achievable goals and checked boxes off one at a time.
That patience paid off in 2021, when Allmendinger scored the team its first Cup Series win and won five races in the Xfinity Series to earn the team its second consecutive Championship 4 berth (Justin Haley made the title race in 2020). Coming in at the same time as Trackhouse Racing and 23XI Racing, it looked as if Kaulig was on a trajectory to become a powerhouse in both series.
Things have plateaued a bit since 2022, however, reaching a low in 2024. In the last two seasons, none of its Xfinity drivers were fighting for the title in Phoenix, and only Allmendinger and van Gisbergen had recorded multi-win seasons. A promising part-time Cup season in 2022 saw Allmendinger receive another full-time shot at the premier level in 2023.
After Haley announced his departure from the Cup team midway through 2023, the team opted to go with Daniel Hemric in its No. 31 and a rotation of drivers in the No. 16 for 2024. Allmendinger returned to the Xfinity Series full time, despite earning the team’s second Cup win at the Charlotte Motor Speedway ROVAL a year ago. The team has had a mix of highs and lows this year, but having top 15s feel like a win is not where the team was supposed to be at this point.
Even with Allmendinger returning to full-time Cup racing in 2025, he isn’t getting any younger at 42. While he has proven he can still put together strings of strong results, the road course dominance isn’t what it once was. And in the newly renumbered No. 10, Ty Dillon moves over to Kaulig’s Cup program despite a history of struggles at the top level. Those facts alone caused a bit of concern of where the team was heading.
In spite of the struggles, one dominant race put Allmendinger and crew back in a position to capture the spotlight. They are one more dominant race away from setting that in stone.
There is no timetable for how long Allmendinger will continue to race. As for Kaulig, it is at a crossroads for how to proceed with the future. What could make that vision a whole lot easier is for Allmendinger and company to deliver on the opportunity at hand and score the team’s first-ever Xfinity championship.
Luken Glover joined the Frontstretch team in 2020 as a contributor, furthering a love for racing that traces back to his earliest memories. Glover inherited his passion for racing from his grandfather, who used to help former NASCAR team owner Junie Donlavey in his Richmond, Va. garage. A 2023 graduate from the University of the Cumberlands, Glover is the author of "The Underdog House," contributes to commentary pieces, and does occasional at-track reporting. Additionally, Glover enjoys working in ministry, coaching basketball, playing sports, and karting.