JR Motorsports Chase Drivers Tamed by Track Too Tough to Tame

DARLINGTON, S.C. — Everything could not have been going better for the JR Motorsports in the first 25 laps of the NASCAR O’Reilly Series race at Darlington Raceway on Saturday night (Sept. 5). Justin Allgaier led, Carson Kvapil ran second and Rajah Caruth ran in the top 10. All three cars are in the inaugural NOAPS Chase competing for a championship and it was early on in round one.

Then, Caruth, the 12th seed of the 12-driver Chase field, turned to pit road where the team threw the hood up to look at the internals of the No. 88 Chevrolet. His fuel pump began to fail, and what he didn’t know at the time is that it was the beginning of a long roller-coaster night for he and the rest of his JRM teammates at the Lady in Black. It ended with disappointing finishes for all of them.

“It was unfortunate, but yeah, it’s sports, it’s racing,” Caruth said post-race to media. “It’s just something out of your control.

“The finish does not show our effort by any means.”

After going two laps down, Caruth rejoined the field in 34th. At the front, Allgaier continued his dominant night by leading all but four laps en route to winning stage one. Right behind him was a hard-charging Kvapil. Both drivers were first and second, respectively in the standings heading into the night. Their stage points only increased their lead.

Despite that, they weren’t perfect. They still had some work to do on the handling of their Chevrolets.

“I felt like all race, like I’d say the first stage we’re just kind of free,” Kvapil told media post-race. “We were on the splitter for a while, and that would make us tight, but really we were free and, obviously, at the end of the run, it would be really, really free, but we tightened it up a good amount, for stage two and, and it fired off pretty good.”

In stage two, their dominance continued. Kvapil got around his Illinois-native teammate for the lead on lap 65. However, near the end of the second segment, Anthony Alfredo, on fresher tires, drove around Kvapil late in the going, and took the stage two victory. Kvapil and Allgaier finished fifth and sixth, respectively.

They didn’t see the lead again for the rest of the night.

All the while, Caruth, upon multiple caution flag periods that saw plenty of free passes awarded, returned to the lead lap. Upon the beginning of the final stage, Caruth, with fresher tires than most of the field ahead of him, started passing cars immediately. With 34 laps to go, he had gained 10 positions and was 17th. With 19 to go, he was back in the top 10.

It seemed like all three cars were going to have the points day they needed after all.

Then, in the closing laps, Allgaier hit the wall.

“I locked the left front up getting into turn 3 on one lap,” Allgaier recalled. “I got the fence really hard, and then from there you’re just kind of hanging on. I don’t know if we knocked something loose or what.”

The No. 7 Chevrolet plummeted through the field after staying in the top three. He held steady for some time in the top five but ended his once dominant night in 17th-place, not at all indicative of the performance he had early on.

“It got to be a handful, Allgaier explained. “Anytime you hit the wall that hard here, it’s bound to do some damage, and I’m sure when we get back, we’ll find all kinds of stuff. Obviously, didn’t want to have the Darlington stripe first of all, but second of all, you definitely don’t want to bleed like that at the end of the race, and when you’re watching guys just catch you, and you’re doing everything you can, and you’re just trying not to wreck, it’s really hard.

“I thought we had a shot at it tonight.”

Kvapil’s story is less eventful. His No. 1 simply faded at the end. By the end of the night, he had fallen to 12th.

“We expect to go race in the top three, and race for the win and stuff like that,” Kvapil said. “To have a race like that is kind of a disappointment, but just part of it, I guess.

“This is an outlier for us. We come here and really kind of fall apart at the end, and we still salvage a 12th. By no means is 12th a good finish for this team.”

But their fates weren’t nearly as cruel as Caruth’s. With less than 10 laps remaining, Caruth was squarely back in the top 10 and on the verge of salvaging a decent points day out of what had been a disappointing Darlington race thus far.

Then his fuel gauge fell yet again.

“We went Green with maybe 40 something to go, and I know like that’s right around the same time and I was trying to save under caution in case [the fuel issue] came back, and it did,” Caruth said. “My fuel pressure gauge started going down both times, and I was like, ‘OK, that’s weird,’ and then, when I was wide open on the straightaway, it kind of just started lugging, and then it really quit.”

The No. 88, from an astonishing sixth-place recovery, had to pit one more time with less than 10 laps to go. He ended his night in 26th, 104 points behind the points leader.

“Bummer,” Caruth commented. “I’m just proud of the effort for us to fight back and keep the car clean and just kind of really use my head in the car and not force the issue or whatnot.”

Caruth couldn’t gather any stage points the whole night and had to settle for a half-field finish. While that resulted in remaining last in The Chase, his teammates at least earned some stage points throughout the night. Heading to World Wide Technology Raceway a week from Saturday, Allgaier remains the leader of the 12-driver field, albeit by only seven points now.

Kvapil dropped to third, 19 points below his teammate. It’s not ideal, but it could’ve been so much worse.

“I feel like, obviously, if we didn’t have those stage points, we wouldn’t be sitting too real good right now,” Kvapil said. “So, thank God we were able to get those stage points and kind of mask the finish we had there at the end.”