HAMPTON, Ga. – It was a night when pretenders became contenders, enough car parts flew through the air to fill a junkyard and several of the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series non-winners threatened to eliminate the “non” from their resumes.
In the end – and it seemed the end might not come before Saturday turned to Sunday – series veteran Justin Allgaier slipped through the late-race chaos to win the Focused Health 250 at EchoPark Speedway, shutting out promising runs by Carson Kvapil, Jeremy Clements, Ryan Sieg, Nick Sanchez and a chorus of other drivers who got a passing glimpse of Victory Lane.
Kvapil had the best shot at scoring a career-first victory. He led 29 laps and was a key player in the late-race mix of incredibly tight competition and the string of wrecks that made the closing miles brim with anxiety.
The final restart with two overtime laps to go was disrupted when Sieg, battling at the front for his first win in 421 series starts, ran out of gas as the green flag flew, and his slowing car rattled the packed drafting lines and made the finish a free-for-all between the charging Allgaier, Kvapil and Parker Retzlaff.
Kvapil lost to his JR Motorsports teammate by 0.139 seconds.
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“I felt like we were the fastest car,” Kvapil said. “Everyone on this team brought an absolute rocketship. I mean it was unbelievably fast and had good handling, too. We could make moves, and it just did everything right.
“I thought, man, just what could go wrong, right? I feel like we pretty much had it in the bag with all the cars around us. They weren’t at the speed that I thought we were.
“I thought as soon as we got all cleared off Turn 2 and then Turn 4 that we were going to be in good shape, but when the 39 ran out of gas there on the restart, it just really screwed us, honestly kind of took us out of the race.”
The wild nature of the final stage repeatedly put surprise drivers near the front. The longest green-flag run in the third stage was seven laps, and the sometimes ferocious racing at the front was interrupted by seven cautions. The stop-and-go racing cut into the strength of Kvapil’s car, which was strong on long runs.
“I felt like we had the best car tonight,” said Rodney Childers, Kvapil’s crew chief. “Carson did a great job, and we’ve had great cars over the last month. Everybody’s clicking and we’re doing the right things. Hopefully, we can continue that and get Carson into Victory Lane before long.”
The runner-up finish was Kvapil’s fifth and his third finish of sixth or better in the past four races.
Team co-owner Dale Earnhardt Jr. had a quick chat with Kvapil on pit road after the race. Kvapil has rotated in and out of the car No. 1’s driver seat this year but will be in the car the rest of the season.
“Tonight there was not much he could have changed about what happened,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “It was out of his control. His help was dissipating on the restart. I would say to him in these moments, you have to look at what you’re in control of and did you do a good job. He did all the things besides winning the race that you need to do.
“We had a great points night. Now he’s in this car from here on out, and he can truly build on that momentum with Rodney.”