Justin Allgaier speaks at a press conference after winning the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series MillerTech Battery 250 on Saturday at Pocono Raceway. SCOTT WALSH / STAFF PHOTO
LONG POND — Pocono Raceway helped save Justin Allgaier’s career.
It was August 2008. His family-owned team was running out of money and sponsorship and maybe had a few races left. Then, he came to Pocono, won the ARCA Series race and met someone from Team Penske on the same day. It all helped lead to a job opportunity in NASCAR.
Every time he came back to Pocono thereafter, he wasn’t able to get back to Victory Lane. Until Saturday.
Allgaier took the checkered flag in the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series MillerTech Battery 250 Presented by KOA. Starting fourth, he led four times for 35 laps in his No. 7 JR Motorsports Chevrolet — including the final eight — and dodged a race-record 10 cautions to win for the first time at Pocono in 11 series starts, fifth time this season and 33rd time in his career. That ranks sixth in series history.
“That’s what started that for me to get that contract,” Allgaier said. “Ultimately, we went on with the help of Team Penske to win the championship that year. That jump-started all of this. Almost 20 years later, we’re still sitting here doing this. Obviously, I’m not at Team Penske anymore. But I found a great home at JR Motorsports. All of those days, the hardest, worst days you have — the ones you think are going to be miserable to show up to the race track — that’s part of why this is so special to me. It makes it even more cool when stuff like this happens today.”
Rookie Brent Crews finished second in the No. 19 Toyota, 0.607 seconds back. Cup Series regular William Byron, who is pulling double duty this weekend, was third in the No. 88 Chevrolet. Sam Mayer, in the No. 41 Chevrolet, and Sheldon Creed, in the No. 00 Chevrolet, rounded out the top five.
Completing the top 10 were Anthony Alfredo, Rajah Caruth, pole-sitter Brandon Jones, defending race champion and Cup regular Connor Zilisch and Carson Kvapil.
On a restart with eight laps remaining, Allgaier passed Mayer for the lead. But a crash coming out of turn three on Lap 95 involving Jeb Burton, Lavar Scott and Dexter Bean brought out the final caution and led to a red flag for 7 minutes, 31 seconds.
When the race went green again on Lap 99, Allgaier got a push from behind from teammate Byron to get ahead of Mayer and drive off to the checkered flag.
“When we took off, Sam and I were touching already even when we got to the restart zone,” Allgaier said. “He knew the speedy dry was up there and I knew I wanted to stay out of it. We were kind of rubbing tires there. Both of us at certain points were kind of bouncing off each other, the cars weren’t really driving straight. Then you got help from the cars behind you. I just knew I needed the 88 to be back there. We talked about it under the red flag about what lane would benefit him the most because I knew the 41 was going to take the front row. How do we get the best launch we can. Ultimately, when the 88 finally got there, it was like hitting the afterburners. Once we got clear getting into (turn) one, barring making any mistakes, I knew we were going to be in a good spot to bring it home.
“The 88 was coming at the end of the race. I don’t know if we would have held him or the 19 off for many more laps.”
Crews passed Byron for the second spot in the final turn of the last lap, but ran out of time to catch Allgaier.
“We were at a tire advantage and could make a lot of speed,” Crews said. “I think that last lap we were about four- or five-tenths better. One more lap we would have had a shot at it. But the race is 100 laps and we didn’t have 101. It is what it is. It was good, clean, hard racing. Learned a lot today. It was cool getting to race against William Byron there. He’s obviously an incredible talent in the Cup Series. You try to be a sponge when you’re around guys like that and absorb and learn as much as you can.”
Finally winning at Pocono means Allgaier gets to bring home one of the track’s bald eagle winner’s trophies.
“Since we’ve come here in the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series, I have circled that trophy 1,000 times,” Allgaier said. “I’ve dreamt about that trophy. I was fortunate enough to win here in the ARCA Series in what seems like forever. I just remember so many cool Victory Lane photos — Trucks, Cup, ARCA — that eagle. We talked about it all week and my crew chief Andrew Overstreet said, ‘That eagle is coming home in our truck this week. I’m telling you right now.’
“I’ve been fortunate enough to win some iconic special trophies and to me that’s one of them. Pocono is an outlier of a race track. It’s what the Mattioli family and Igdalsky family have done at this facility and how cool this place is. The campers in the infield are impressive. When I looked up in the grandstand at the start today and saw the sea of people for an O’Reilly Series it was next level.”
After just 17 races, Allgaier — the 2024 series champion — has a 250-point lead over Jesse Love in the standings and has already clinched a berth in “The Chase,” the championship playoff over the final nine races. Love and third-place Corey Day finished 37th and 38th, respectively, Saturday after the two crashed on the opening lap of the race.