Allgaier takes his third Xfinity win of the season
Justin Allgaier outran 2011 Daytona 500 champion Trevor Bayne on Saturday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway for third Xfinity Series victory of the season.
Allgaier won all three checkered flags over his last eight races, a hot streak that started in May at Darlington Raceway and he added his second win last month at Nashville Superspeedway.
The 36-year-old Allgaier controlled a wreck-filled race late in his No. 7 Chevrolet is again in the hunt to win his coveted first Xfinity championship. Allgaier took the lead with 48 laps left and grabbed the checkered flag for Chevrolet and JR Motorsports — and a trophy he planned to share with his wife, Ashley.
“If I can't be with my wife on her birthday, the best thing to do is take home a trophy,” he said.
His family couldn't attend the race because their daughter had a softball game. Allgaier also gave Chevrolet its first win at New Hampshire since 2007.
Bayne also finished second to Allgaier in Nashville.
Landon Cassill finished third. He has yet to win a NASCAR race over 332 career Cup races, 194 Xfinity races and eight Truck Series races. His 17 laps led were as many as he had total in his Xfinity career entering the race.
NASCAR
Martin Truex Jr. won a pole for the first time in his three-plus seasons with Joe Gibbs Racing and will lead a Toyotaheavy top five to green at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.
Truex turned a lap of 127.113 mph on Saturday and won his 20th career pole — the previous 19 were won with other teams, including a career-best five with defunct Furniture Row Racing in 2016. He has 12 wins with JGR since 2019.
“We've got a lot of race wins, and those are obviously more important,” Truex said. “You always want to be the fastest guy. We got a small victory today.”
Truex, the 2017 Cup champion, will take any boost he can as he races today for his first win of the season.
IndyCar
Colton Herta finally broke through. After nine consecutive races with nine different pole winners, the 22-year-old Californian became IndyCar's first twotime pole winner this season. Herta posted a fast lap of 59.2698 seconds Saturday
on Toronto's bumpy, 11-turn, 1.786mile temporary street course, edging sixtime series champ Scott Dixon.
It's Herta's ninth career pole and his first since April's race in Long Beach, California.
“It's always nice when you get to drive a race car that you know can get there, and yeah, we put it all together,” Herta said. “The car's amazing, the team's amazing.” Herta's been pretty good, too.
He's won four races since the start of 2021 and seven times since joining the series full-time in 2019 — all on road courses. And earlier this week, Herta spent two days in Portugal testing cars for McLaren's Formula One team.
But once he hopped back in an IndyCar car this weekend, it all felt and looked natural to Herta.
Dixon settled for second at 59.3592.
NHRA
Brittany Force took the No. 1 spot in the final Top Fuel qualifying session Saturday in the NHRA Mile-High Nationals at Bandimere Speedway in Morrison, Colo.
Force had a 3.758-second run at 325.61 mph at Thunder Mountain for her fourth No. 1 qualifier of the season and 36th overall.”
Matt Hagan topped the Funny Car field, Aaron Stanfield was fastest in Pro Stock and Matt Smith led in Pro Stock Motorcycle.
Defending event winner Hagan wrapped up his fourth top spot of the year with a 3.908 at 323.12 in a Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat.
Stanfield secured his fourth No. 1 qualifier of the season with a 6.934 at 196.82 in a Chevrolet.