(Photo: Wayne Riegle | The Podium Finish)
WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. — Parker Kligerman has put together solid finishes over the last five weeks, but that hasn’t paid dividends in his quest to get inside the provisional playoff grid.
Finally, the stars aligned at Watkins Glen. Kligerman finished third and cut his points deficit from 17 behind Sheldon Creed to just three behind Riley Herbst.
“We scored points in all stages, all three, which was great,” Kilgerman said after the race. “Everyone at Big Machine Racing is working really hard, and we just got to keep doing what we’ve been doing. Our average finish going into this race, the last four was 6.5, and now it’s got to go up.”
Kligerman finished 10th in both stages after qualifying 14th earlier in the day. He remained in contention throughout the afternoon, but the door got kicked open when a caution came out with seven laps to go.
On the restart, Kligerman came on the cusp of the top five when Justin Allgaier went spinning through the carousel, triggering a big wreck and causing a caution.
NASCAR had Kligerman scored in ninth for the overtime attempt, but Kligerman believed that he should’ve been fifth. That, he said, may have taken away an opportunity for the No. 48 Chevrolet to win the race.
“Someone has to explain this to me, because I’m pretty sure the car that hit me in the wreck was the 8 (Josh Berry), who then starts fifth and I get sent to ninth,” Kligerman said. “That’s really disappointing and it’s just not gone our way once this year. It’s just stupid little things that keep you from being where that 1 car (Sam Mayer, race winner) was.
“I’m sure they can explain to me what happened there, but it just doesn’t seem correct. I don’t know if the system’s right, whatever because that just seemed egregious that we were back to ninth.”
Overtime led to chaos, including Mayer spinning out Ty Gibbs, who dominated the race, in Turn 1 on the restart. The drivers race through oil and speedy dry, similar to Road America when Mayer won his first career race.
Kligerman took advantage of the adverse conditions, gaining six spots to get inside the top three.
“As I’m hitting the oil on the carousel, the 8 is losing his tire. He’s going around,” Kligerman described. “Then off in the distance, I see [Mayer] and [Creed] go flying off, way off the track, and I’m like ‘whew, ok, this might be an opportunity to get by the 24. The 24 went off in front of me, I got to him — it reminded me so much of Road America.”
While Creed finished runner-up, Kligerman gained ground in points because Herbst suffered a mechanical issue and didn’t finish the race.
The three drivers have been bunched together around the cutline for several weeks. On a streak of five top 10s in a row, Kligerman’s now the closest he’s been to the playoff picture since the spring months with three races remaining in the regular season.
“All I know is looking at the Whelen logo (Creed’s sponsor) because that’s all I do. If it’s not right in front of me, it’s in my mirror,” Kligerman joked. “We’re all in this points position because we’re obviously very close. But yeah, that’s cool. I like that we’re all competing at a high level. It’s unfortunate for Riley to have a mechanical issue, but that’s racing. We’ve had a couple of those, and this is what it’s all about. It’s about the war and these individual little battles.
“You’ve just got to find a way to click things off and not make mistakes and push yourself to the nth degree to be in the right position.”
Kligerman will look to pursue a victory and barge into the top 12 next week at Daytona International Speedway. His mindset is to get up front and stay there, and the rest will sort itself out.
The 33-year-old from, Greenwich, Connecticut has two superspeedway wins in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series.
“We have to lead, lead, lead, win the stages and then whatever happens, happens,” Kligerman said. “I made the mistake at Daytona earlier this year of in Stage 2, getting a little spooked and bowing out. We never got back to the front and we ended up wrecking at the end and it was a terrible day. So, I won’t make that mistake again.
“If I do the right things and can do the right homework this week, I think we have a chance to win.”
