Chase contenders Justin Allgaier and Brandon Jones found early trouble in Saturday’s O’Reilly Auto Parts Series race, dealing a setback to their postseason hopes at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
Jones lost control of his No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota in the 55th of 201 laps in Saturday’s Focused Health 302, shortly after a restart that began Stage 2 at the 1.5-mile track. His sudden veer toward the outside wall collected the No. 7 JR Motorsports Chevrolet of Allgaier, wedging both cars against the barrier. Both drivers were evaluated and released from the infield care center.
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Allgaier finished 34th, one spot ahead of Jones, who was sidelined by the melee. Allgaier’s crew made extensive repairs to get his No. 7 Chevy back on track for two extra laps, gaining him a finishing position ahead of Jones to claim one extra point in The Chase presented by Mobil 1.
Jones began the second stage in the lead after quick pit work helped him gain three spots, but the JGR driver voiced concerns that the left-front wheel may not have been fully fastened. Allgaier had restarted eighth in the 36-car field.
Jones said the pit-stop miscue caused a major vibration as his No. 20 Supra tried to round Turn 1, and he lamented the lapse in execution after his care center check-up.
“Yeah, shoot, it’s just the pit stop,” Jones said. “I mean, they’re trying to get me out front, I guess, and it’s just right now every mistake like this is a detriment to the season. It’s like, give up a half-second to maybe just maintain. It’s like, you just don’t have to hit the home runs right now, and I don’t know, I don’t know what we need to do better other than just execute from the the team’s standpoint. Unfortunately, I’m not a finger-pointer at all. I mean, there’s always things that I could do better on all these races, but at the end of the day, it’s all these little decisions of staying out and not pitting, and then having mistakes like this on pit road with the loose wheels. It’s like constant, nonstop things that are out of my control that I can’t figure out how to get to stop.
“So it’s difficult when it’s like this. It’s really hard to stop the bleeding. You see it time and time again with other cars and other teams and drivers. It’s whoever can not make mistakes, and the guys that make mistakes end up not winning, and they end up falling out like we currently are, unfortunately. So we’ve just got to keep pushing, though. We got to keep going race to race, can’t be a quitter. You can’t give up in these moments.”
Allgaier said he’d hoped Jones would have slowed, rather than attempt to ride out the loose-wheel issue.
“I mean, in that scenario, like you’ve already had a couple corners, maybe you just pull down and get out of the way, right?” Allgaier said. “Because when you look at three- and four-wide all the way, I mean, I think we were three- and four-wide all the way through (turns) three and four. The instinct is that you want to stay in it and keep going and maybe it’ll get better, but the law of averages says it usually doesn’t, so I don’t know. It’s disappointing.”
Allgaier, the 2024 series champion, entered the nine-race Chase as the top seed. Four races in, the 40-year-old veteran has slipped to fourth place in the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series, including Saturday’s two-spot drop after his early exit. He now ranks 31 points behind series points leader Sheldon Creed, who placed 13th as the final driver on the lead lap.
Jones entered the postseason as the No. 6 seed. He’s now 11th, 129 points off the top — 15 points worse than before he started Saturday’s race.
“I just, I hate it for everybody involved,” Jones said. “I hate it for the partners, for the team. I mean, they’re not trying to mess up. I know that, right? They’re not trying to put me in these bad situations. It just seems like we just can’t ever make the right decision currently.”