Allgaier Noses Past Creed for Daytona Xfinity Win

(Photo: Cornnell Chu | The Podium Finish)

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Justin Allgaier survived NASCAR Overtime and beat out Sheldon Creed by 0.005 seconds to win Friday’s Wawa 250 at Daytona International Speedway.

Allgaier secured his second Xfinity Series victory of the season for JR Motorsports and the first of his career at Daytona in 26 tries.

“To be able to do it tonight with a photo finish like we did — such a great race car,” Allgaier said in a press conference after the race. “You go through those late race restarts and you’re never really sure what’s going to happen … It’s just really surreal. This one’s gonna take a while to sink in.”

Allgaier had to successfully defend two late restarts after the caution originally came out for a crash with eight laps to go.

However, it took a while for Allgaier to get into a race-winning position. His No. 7 Chevrolet, led by crew chief Jim Pohlman, failed technical inspection on Thursday and had to drop to the rear and serve a pass-through to start Friday’s race. He was among a group of five that failed and they formed a draft to stay on the lead lap as Stage 1 went caution-free. By the end of Stage 2, he got up to 12th.

Allgaier got pushed out in front of the pack by Daniel Hemric on the final restart. Creed, who restarted second on the inside, got down to the bottom lane while taking the white flag and set up a move on Allgaier. He darted high entering Turn 3 but didn’t have enough momentum to get past Allgaier and win his first career race.

“I think the gas pedal went through the floorboard at that point. I was pushing on it that hard,” Allgaier explained. “There’s so many factors at play, there’s so many things going on. You’re thinking about every little detail. For me, I knew that Sheldon had a big run and I knew that our car was strong, but I was watching the two cars behind. I knew that Hemric on the bottom was kind of the faster of the two cars, so I knew if I could get him to push me a little bit, we could stay side by side.

“It never crossed my mind that there wasn’t a shot that we didn’t win. The only time I questioned it was I was doing my interview on the front straightaway with NBC, and the jumbotron shot an angle that was kind of from more towards Turn 4, and the crowd was like ‘ohhh,’ and I was like ‘we did win, right?’ … so a quick moment of panic.”

(Photo: Christopher Vargas | The Podium Finish)

Creed ended runner-up for the second week in a row after he slipped on oil and speedy dry while racing Sam Mayer for the win at Watkins Glen International last week. Hemric finished third and Parker Kligerman finished fourth, jumping to 20 points above the cutline after Riley Herbst suffered an early tire issue.

Trevor Bayne made his first start of the season for Joe Gibbs Racing and finished 29th after suffering damage in a crash. He’ll also make starts at Bristol Motor Speedway and Texas Motor Speedway.

Stage 1 Results

1. Austin Hill
2. Sheldon Creed
3. Chandler Smith
4. Brett Moffitt
5. Anthony Alfredo
6. Brandon Jones
7. Daniel Hemric
8. Jeremy Clements
9. Cole Custer
10. Trevor Bayne

Stage 2 Results

1. Sheldon Creed
2. Austin Hill
3. Cole Custer
4. Sammy Smith
5. Daniel Hemric
6. John Hunter Nemechek
7. Trevor Bayne
8. Parker Kligerman
9. Sam Mayer
10. Chandler Smith

Wawa 250 Results

Points Standings (Two Races Remaining in Regular Season