Reigning NASCAR Xfinity Series champion JR Motorsports veteran Justin Allgaier finished second to his teammate Conner Zilisch in the Regular Season Championship. And he joins Zilisch and Austin Hill as the series’ only other multi-race winners.
Allgaier has hoisted three trophies – the last at Nashville in June. And he heads into the Playoffs feeling confident about becoming the first repeat champ since Tyler Reddick in 2018-19. Even with so much on the line, Allgaier said the “pressure” is off his No. 7 JR Motorsports Chevrolet team to win a title because they have done that. And, he says that even coming into the year as the reigning champ the only significant boost is the experience of successfully going through a title run.
“I think for us it’s just a matter of executing, we’ve had the speed,” said Allgaier, adding, “I could look back at the last couple of months and say, “coulda woulda shoulda,” but we had the car to beat, we just got caught up in someone else’s mess or made mistakes on our own.
“One thing I love is that they’ve had success,” Allgaier acknowledged of the Zilisch nine-win run. “As a company we’re still winning and we’re still doing all the right things. … it doesn’t matter what race team you work at, when at least one of your cars is having success everybody’s elevated, everybody is ready to keep pushing and keep going.
“We’ve got four fast race cars every week, we just haven’t been able to show what we’re capable of and I’m hoping once these Playoffs start we can do a better job of executing. I know I have the team behind me.”
By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service