(Photo: Sam Draiss | The Podium Finish)
DOVER, Del. — On a dominant day for JR Motorsports, Josh Berry held off teammate Justin Allgaier to win the A-GAME 200 at Dover Motor Speedway, headlining a 1-2-4-5 team finish.
“I’ve been really fortunate since I’ve gotten my opportunity here in the Xfinity Series, JR Motorsports has done a great job,” Berry said. “All four of us are working really well together and we have a lot of really great speed.”
Berry qualified for the race fourth and finished Stage 1 in third. He fell back to fourth at the end of Stage 2, but by the final stage, his car started to really come alive.
“It was a combination of adjustments that the guys made and getting cleaner air on the restarts,” Berry said. “I just made a few mistakes early on the bottom and just got loose. Thankfully, nothing big happened out of that.”
On Lap 166, the race restarted after a crash involving Bayley Currey. Berry jumped out to a second and a half lead over Allgaier and maintained it for most of the final run. He navigated lap traffic to score his third career Xfinity Series victory.
“Racing at this level is a lot of work,” he said. “You have to love the work and preparation more than necessarily the finishes. We just kept our heads down and kept working every week trying to fix any of our mistakes. We knew that if we did that and we kept bringing fast cars, we’d have enough speed to win.”
While Berry’s satisfied with the win, he feels he has room to grow in just his second NASCAR season.
“I feel like I still have a lot of work to do,” he said. “I’ve been working really hard to get better every week and there’s a lot of things that I need to do better… we’re ready to work together to reach our potential. I don’t think we’re anywhere near close to that yet.
Though he ultimately fell short, Justin Allgaier finished second after leading 67 laps. After starting from seventh, he worked his way into the top five and remained there the rest of the race.
“We had such a good car,” Allgaier said. “To prepare four race cars to come to the racetrack and have all four of them finish in the top five, that’s truly spectacular.”
Notables:
- Justin Allgaier recorded his 11th top-five at Dover in 22 tries with his second-place finish
- Noah Gragson finished fourth to win the final Dash 4 Cash event of the season. It’s his fifth time winning the $100,000 bonus.
- Sam Mayer finished fifth after losing a wheel at the end of Stage 1
- Brandon Jones finished seventh after starting from the pole
- Sheldon Creed finished eighth, the highest of all rookies
- Ryan Sieg finished 10th after starting from the rear. He carried the race’s sponsor, A-GAME, on his car.
- Chandler Smith finished 21st in his second Xfinity Series start
- Jeremy Clements finished 29th after suffering early damage
- John Hunter Nemechek finished 37th after a brake rotor exploded
- Rajah Caruth finished 38th after an early blown tire
- AJ Allmendinger leads Xfinity points by 43 over Ty Gibbs
Results:
STAGE 1: Sam Mayer, Justin Allgaier, Josh Berry, Brandon Jones, Ty Gibbs, AJ Allmendinger, Noah Gragson, Riley Herbst, Sheldon Creed
STAGE 2: Justin Allgaier, Brandon Jones, AJ Allmendinger, Josh Berry, Ty Gibbs, Riley Herbst, Noah Gragson, Daniel Hemric, Sheldon Creed, Austin Hill
FINAL: Josh Berry, Justin Allgaier, Ty Gibbs, Noah Gragson, Sam Mayer, AJ Allmendinger, Brandon Jones, Sheldon Creed, Riley Herbst, Ryan Sieg
Next:
The NASCAR Xfinity Series heads to Darlington Raceway on Saturday, May 7 for the Mahindra ROXOR 200. The race is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. ET on FS1.
