Not so long ago, back in April, the hottest driver in NASCAR wasn’t the defending NASCAR Cup Series champion, the winner of the Daytona 500, or even a full-time driver in the Cup Series.
It was the 39-year-old defending Xfinity Series champion, Justin Allgaier.
After securing the title in one of the biggest single-race comeback performances in NASCAR history, Allgaier was tagged to drive JR Motorsports’ entry in the Daytona 500. He made the race, finished ninth, and was, for a while, the best seller in merchandise for all of the Cup Series despite it being his only event this season.
Oh, he was pretty good in the Xfinity Series, too. Back-to-back wins at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and Homestead-Miami Speedway were sprinkled into an eight-race stretch where Allgaier finished outside the top five only once. After a win at Nashville Superspeedway on May 31, Allgaier led the regular season standings by 91 points and his teammate Connor Zilisch by 187 points.
Eight races later, the veteran and the rookie are dead even in the standings at 772, with Sam Mayer’s win at Iowa Speedway bringing him to within 16 points of the JR Motorsports duo.
How that gap closed is the story of two teammates going in completely different directions. For Allgaier, that means a huge cool-off from his hot start to 2025.
In most cases, it’s been poor luck. While JR Motorsports was the dominant team of the day in Mexico City, Allgaier’s race was upended by a broken axle in the opening stage. He finished 15 laps down in 34th. After a quiet top-10 finish at Pocono Raceway, Allgaier was one of the many casualties of a stage one pileup on the backstretch. While he finished 31st, his current competition for the regular season title, Zilisch and Mayer, survived to score top-five finishes.
Allgaier regained consistency with two top-10 finishes at Sonoma Raceway and Dover Motor Speedway, then had one of his best days in a while at Indianapolis Motor Speedway … until it wasn’t.
After finishing second in stage one and stealing a stage two win from Zilisch, Allgaier and Kyle Larson split a pair of restarts to begin the final stage — coincidentally, both from the outside — to set up a tiebreaker and potential race decider with 14 to go. Allgaier started to pull in front off turn 2, but Larson slid up the track and put the No. 7 in the wall. His 36th-place finish was a disappointing one for him, and his series lead shrinking to 20 points made him appreciate those early-season successes.
“It makes me proud of what we accomplished earlier in the year,” Allgaier said. “This is about five bad races in a row or whatever it is, and we still got a 20-point lead.”
At Iowa, Allgaier’s race didn’t just suffer from ‘wrong place, wrong time.’ Well below-average pace for the team placed it well outside the top 10 until a caution with 49 laps to go allowed it to play the pit strategy game. A no-tire stop allowed Allgaier to get track position and hang out in the top five … until Zilisch (of all people) slid up into Ross Chastain, who spun Allgaier into a 16th-place finish and a tie atop the points.
What makes Allgaier’s tumble the last month or so all the more painful has been that Zilisch has been picking up the scraps. Zilisch’s five wins have helped him overtake Allgaier in playoff points, 30-22. While Austin Hill being stripped of his playoff points puts the JR Motorsports teammates in their league as far as playoff points go, only one driver gets the 15 bonus points for being the regular season champ.
What do the last four races of the regular season hold? Two road courses, a superspeedway and a track Allgaier hasn’t raced at since 2007 in World Wide Technology Raceway. Advantage head-to-head, as wild as it is to say, has to go to the 19-year-old Zilisch.
Then again, maybe this is exactly the challenge Allgaier needs. Back when his team was fresh off a title and about to go on a red-hot run, the aging veteran talked about needing a challenge to keep things fresh.
“Jim Pohlman has done a great job of getting me in a position where I’ve changed my approach,” Allgaier said. “You do this long enough and it gets stale, and you don’t test yourself. He was able to push me in ways I haven’t been pushed before.”
Going head-to-head with a teammate in a scenario where the deck is stacked against you might be the obstacle Allgaier needs to test himself and pull the most out of himself going into the playoffs. If he can hold off Zilisch, add it to the list of ridiculous obstacles he and JRM have overcome over the last nine months.
But there’s an x-factor in this battle for the regular season championship to watch, and that’s Mayer. First off, we know he’s got an affinity for road course racing with four of his eight Xfinity wins coming on road courses. Secondly, he has a history of popping off multiple good results in a row. In 2023, he followed his first career Xfinity win with two top fives and another win.
Finally, while Allgaier and Zilisch have both hit huge snags in results this season at one point, Mayer hasn’t. Through 22 races, he has just four finishes worse than 14th. If he maintains those strong finishes over the next four races, and if Allgaier and Zilisch aren’t careful, we could have a whole new top contender emerge heading into the playoffs.
James Krause joined Frontstretch in March 2024 as a contributor. Krause was born and raised in Illinois and graduated from Northern Illinois University. He currently works in La Crosse, Wisconsin as a local sports reporter, including local short track racing. Outside of racing, Krause loves to keep up with football, music, anime and video games.