CONCORD, N.C. — Justin Allgaier’s postseason aspirations were riding high two weeks ago as the NASCAR Xfinity Series regular-season champ with a solid accumulation of playoff points bolstering his hopes.
Two events into the seven-race playoffs, Allgaier sits in limbo after crashes in consecutive events. The latest snare struck midway through Saturday’s Race for the Cure 200 at Charlotte Motor Speedway’s newfangled oval-road course, but both snags have a common thread: costly contact with the Team Penske No. 22 Ford of Austin Cindric.
“I think this playoff format has kind of disconnected some people’s brains and they drive a little bit over their head,” said Allgaier, who wound up 15th to Cindric’s third place in Saturday’s race. “It’s a shame, too, because it took us out of a good day. That’s really disappointing.”
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Allgaier was leaving pit road on Lap 27, his JR Motorsports No. 7 Chevrolet blending back onto the course in formation behind Matt Tifft’s No. 2 Chevy on the short chute leading to Turn 3. He returned to the circuit alongside Cindric, who was closing on the slower No. 35 car of Joey Gase.
Cindric veered up into the right-rear fender of Allgaier’s car, which looped around and was slammed by Ryan Sieg’s No. 39 Chevrolet. Allgaier continued, but sizable damage to the left-rear wheel hampered his chances of contending.
WATCH: Allgaier and Sieg make contact
Cindric accepted blame for the incident, but pointed out that the blend area for the new 2.28-mile circuit’s pit exit could be more clearly defined.
“Justin and I talked on pit road. He wasn’t happy, but it didn’t seem like something he wanted to fight about or anything,” Cindric said. “He just said that was poor racing and we can do better than that. So I said, ‘Yeah, I completely agree.’ Kind of move on. I’m sure that doesn’t help him super-great in points, but I think he was still able to recover and it didn’t really hurt his day too much. Obviously, unfortunate to have that happen in the race, especially when it didn’t really even matter, when we were all pitting off strategy, but obviously you’ve got to minimize those errors.”
Allgaier discounted the blend-line theory, instead blaming his second straight run-in with Cindric on the rookie’s unnecessary haste. The two collided the previous weekend at Richmond Raceway, with Allgaier receiving the brunt of the damage. He was on the short end of their contact Saturday, prompting Allgaier into a civil but animated discussion with a Team Penske crew member in the Xfinity Series garage.
“We had no issues merging out on the race track. That wasn’t the problem,” Allgaier said. “The car that wrecked me was impatient because he was behind a car he felt wasn’t up to speed. Instead of trying to pass that car and losing the spot to us again, he just decided to drive into me and spin me out, so in my mind, it’s pretty cut and dried what happened. Just dumb racing.”
Allgaier recovered enough to return to the top 10 in the final stage, but repeated pit stops for repairs led to the sour-tasting finish. The result knocked the postseason’s top seed down to seventh in the playoff standings, 11 points above the cut-off point with one race remaining in the opening round. The driver who sits on the cut line as the provisional first driver outside the playoff picture? Cindric, who sits nine points behind eighth-ranking Ross Chastain.
The Xfinity Series playoff field will be trimmed from 12 drivers to eight after next Saturday’s race at Dover International Speedway. Allgaier won at the Monster Mile’s most recent Xfinity race in May, but said there was no such thing as a safe place in the current standings.
“You want to go run good — you don’t want to get crashed — and you try to gain as many points as you can,” Allgaier said. “That’s what we tried to do today, figure out how to gain as many points as we can. Dover’s been good for us, it’s always been good for us, but all in all anything can happen and we can miss this first round. You can’t say never.”