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AVONDALE, Ariz. -- Four races into his NASCAR XFINITY Series tenure at JR Motorsports, Justin Allgaier sees the progress being made on his No. 7 Chevrolet team. But he's hungry for more.
The 29-year-old driver scored his best finish of the young 2016 season with a fourth-place showing in the Axalta Faster. Tougher. Brighter. 200 at Phoenix International Raceway on Saturday. The top-five finish moves him up one spot in the standings to fourth, just 12 points behind standings leader Daniel Suarez.
"I feel like we should have been third," Allgaier said on pit road after the race. "To bring the car with a solid top-five is a good day."
After qualifying 10th, the Illinois native found himself in the top five by Lap 30 and as high as the top three by Lap 60. A call for two tires on a pit stop under the race's third and final caution at the midpoint of the 200-lap event lifted him to second.
Keeping -- and improving on -- Allgaier's track position was the reason behind the call, crew chief Jason Burdett explained after the race.
"We have to maintain that track position as best we can," Burdett told NASCAR.com. "We had a really good car today. The Brandt Chevrolet was fast for most of the day, but if you get back in traffic you are just bogged down. It's just hard to get back going again and pass all those guys.
"Our opportunity there was to get two tires. Obviously, the Gibbs guys are really good right now -- the class of the field."
Allgaier was able to make the two-tire play hold up to run in the top five for much of the remainder of the race. The JRM driver was the highest finisher that does not wheel a Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota as Kyle Busch, Erik Jones and Suarez swept the top three spots.
With Busch rattling off three straight victories in the XFINITY Series and two straight top-three sweeps for JGR, the organization is hard to stop right now. Burdett is taking the long view on how to catch up to them.
"We just got to keep working on it," Burdett said. "[It] gives us an opportunity with the Chase format in the XFINITY Series. It will give us the chance to keep working, keep getting our cars a little bit better, little bit better and then by the time we get to Kentucky (site of the Chase opener in the XFINITY Series) we'll be hopefully on par with those guys, and we can go and race them hard."
The importance of getting back to Victory Lane in this new format is not lost on Allgaier. He has three career wins in the series, with the last coming in 2012.
"Obviously, we'd love to get a win so you're locked in and can try some different things," Allgaier said. "At the same time, if we keep plugging along and doing the things that we're doing, I think we've got a great shot of being in the Chase at the end of the year. If we can do that, I think we can keep building on the momentum that we've got already and be a threat to hopefully win the Chase."