Justin Allgaier rocks Nashville in Tennessee Lottery 250

On Saturday, Justin Allgaier put up the best performance by a #7 in Nashville since Billy Volek’s 426-yard, four-touchdown performance at the nearby Nissan Stadium on 13 December 2004 as he won both stages and led 134 of 188 laps to take the NASCAR Xfinity Series‘ Tennessee Lottery 250 at Nashville Superspeedway.

The win is Allgaier’s second of 2022 and his first at Nashville, which returned to the schedule in 2021 (where he placed runner-up to Kyle Busch) after he had made six starts between 2009 and 2011. He described his #7 JR Motorsports car on Saturday as one of the best he had driven, arguing he did not “think ever” that he had a better machine.

“What a heck of a race,” he continued. “We’ve been coming here for a long time, and I love this race track. Been trying to get a win so bad and hadn’t been able to do it.

“Today was like a dirt race. It was slick, it was hot, we were sliding around. I’ve got a guitar to take home, and we’re going to enjoy it.”

While Allgaier stomped the field, Sheldon Creed, Joe Graf Jr., and Jeb Burton got stomped in a crash on lap 124. Other incidents included Josh Berry who spun with contact from Ryan Preece and Sam Mayer and Ty Gibbs‘ beef returning as they collided, though all but Berry would finish in the top ten.

“[Mayer] just packed air on my left rear and I got out there and he drove into me,” Gibbs said. “It’s just part of it. Hopefully, we learned from it and we don’t have to go through that again. I’ve done that mistake too with the #39 (Ryan Sieg) at the beginning of the year (at Las Vegas). It’s just part of it, part of the learning experience.

“[…] We’re both the same age so we’ll see what happens.”

Trevor Bayne finished a distant second after having to overcome a pit penalty for two tyres rolling into the neighbouring pit stall of pole winner Riley Herbst.

“It’s really hard to win a race when you go to the back twice,” Bayne remarked. We drove to second twice, from the back. The second stage, we came in with Riley and hit a pit crew member—not intentionally, but it can happen, then fell back to fifteenth and drove back to second. Then we had a loose wheel and had to go to the very back and drove back and was catching Allgaier. He’s my buddy, Gator, congrats to him. Happy for him, but man, I wanted to win that guitar and win here at Nashville.

“I feel like we did everything right on the car and feel like I did everything right behind the wheel. We have to clean up the mistakes and we’re going to win because it takes every piece of this deal. But thankful to be here, but it’s perspective. I used to be mad and I’m still mad, but with perspective, being happy to be here.”

Herbst apologised to Bayne’s crew and said, “I had no intention of doing that. […] I just got in there hot. I locked up the left-front and just a bummer deal. We both lost spots, so by no means was I trying to do that.”

Despite the pit road struggles, Herbst was able to finish third for his third top five of the season, tying his total from 2021. Gibbs placed behind him to cap off a strong day for Monster Energy drivers. It was the fourth time that both drivers finished in the top five (third in 2022) and fifth with top tens for both.

“I don’t think the whole field had anything for the #7, I think he was on cruise control all day,” commented Herbst. “But our Monster Energy Ford Mustang was really good. I’m just proud of us as a group. Way to execute. I messed up on pit road a few times myself and the team, so we’ve got to clean up a little stuff there but, all in all, it was a good day. We got a pole and good points. This is what we need to keep doing, just knock on the door and eventually it will open.”

“We got the pole and we wanted to lead some laps, but unfortunately we didn’t lead any laps. We got quite a bit of stage points, which is what we needed. It’s just a really good day for everybody at Stewart-Haas Racing, myself included. I’m proud of all these guys on the #98 team. If just keep doing these runs we’ll eventually get there and if we just keep knocking on the door, eventually it will open.”

Among the one-offs, B.J. McLeod finished twenty-eighth as a substitute in the #08 SS-Green Light Racing car for an ill David Starr. Dillon Bassett, whose team has struggled with qualifying for races or being locked out of those without it, made his first start since the 2020 Charlotte race and was thirtieth.

Race results

Finish	Start	Number	Driver	Team	Manufacturer	Laps	Status
1	5	7	Justin Allgaier	JR Motorsports	Chevrolet	188	Running
2	3	18	Trevor Bayne	Joe Gibbs Racing	Toyota	188	Running
3	1	98	Riley Herbst	Stewart-Haas Racing	Ford	188	Running
4	14	54	Ty Gibbs	Joe Gibbs Racing	Toyota	188	Running
5	21	1	Sam Mayer	JR Motorsports	Chevrolet	188	Running
6	27	5	Ryan Preece*	B.J. McLeod Motorsports	Ford	188	Running
7	11	26	Jeffrey Earnhardt	Sam Hunt Racing	Toyota	188	Running
8	4	21	Austin Hill	Richard Childress Racing	Chevrolet	188	Running
9	24	39	Ryan Sieg	RSS Racing	Ford	188	Running
10	15	02	Brett Moffitt	Our Motorsports	Chevrolet	188	Running
11	17	68	Brandon Brown	Brandonbilt Motorsports	Chevrolet	188	Running
12	25	28	Parker Retzlaff	RSS Racing	Ford	188	Running
13	6	9	Noah Gragson	JR Motorsports	Chevrolet	187	Running
14	8	19	Brandon Jones	Joe Gibbs Racing	Toyota	187	Running
15	23	45	Stefan Parsons*	Alpha Prime Racing	Chevrolet	187	Running
16	2	16	A.J. Allmendinger	Kaulig Racing	Chevrolet	187	Running
17	10	11	Daniel Hemric	Kaulig Racing	Chevrolet	187	Running
18	12	10	Landon Cassill	Kaulig Racing	Chevrolet	187	Running
19	29	6	Ryan Vargas	JD Motorsports	Chevrolet	187	Running
20	26	23	Anthony Alfredo	Our Motorsports	Chevrolet	187	Running
21	18	48	Tyler Reddick*	Big Machine Racing Team	Chevrolet	186	Running
22	22	51	Jeremy Clements	Jeremy Clements Racing	Chevrolet	186	Running
23	31	36	Alex Labbé	DGM Racing	Chevrolet	186	Running
24	20	44	Ryan Ellis	Alpha Prime Racing	Chevrolet	185	Running
25	28	38	Kyle Sieg	RSS Racing	Ford	185	Running
26	38	35	Patrick Emerling	Emerling-Gase Motorsports	Chevrolet	185	Running
27	35	31	Myatt Snider	Jordan Anderson Racing	Chevrolet	185	Running
28	34	08	B.J. McLeod	SS-Green Light Racing	Ford	185	Running
29	9	8	Josh Berry	JR Motorsports	Chevrolet	184	Running
30	30	77	Dillon Bassett	Bassett Racing	Chevrolet	182	Running
31	36	4	Bayley Currey	JD Motorsports	Chevrolet	181	Running
32	37	66	Natalie Decker	MBM Motorsports	Toyota	181	Running
33	33	13	J.J. Yeley	MBM Motorsports	Toyota	157	Running
34	32	78	Josh Williams	B.J. McLeod Motorsports	Chevrolet	136	Electrical
35	7	27	Jeb Burton	Our Motorsports	Chevrolet	126	Accident
36	19	2	Sheldon Creed	Richard Childress Racing	Chevrolet	124	Accident
37	13	07	Joe Graf Jr.	SS-Green Light Racing	Ford	123	Accident
38	16	34	Kyle Weatherman	Jesse Iwuji Motorsports	Chevrolet	118	Power
DNQ		91	Mason Massey	DGM Racing	Chevrolet
DNQ		47	Brennan Poole*	Mike Harmon Racing	Chevrolet
DNQ		99	Matt Mills*	B.J. McLeod Motorsports	Chevrolet