Allmendinger doubles up with win in Xfinity race in Michigan
BROOKLYN, Mich. — AJ Allmendinger put his emotions on full display Saturday —again.
He screamed into the radio while crossing the finish line. He scaled the Michigan International Speedway fence. Then he paused to savor the moment fans started chanting hisname.
Now Allmendinger doesn’t doesn’t want it to end. Just six days after the biggest victory of his career, the NASCAR CupSeries’ Brickyard 200, Allmendinger drove back to victory lane — this time by taking the lead with four laps left in regulation and holding to win the Xfinity Series race in tripleovertime.
He beat Bradon Jones to the finish line by 0.163 seconds.
“Wow! What a hell of a six days,” said. “This is awesome
I don’t want to wake up from thisdream I’m in.”
For nearly two decades Allmendinger struggled to stay competitive and relevant in IndyCarsand stock cars. Now, at age 39, the Californian might be going through the beststretch of his career.
A little more than 24 hours after finishing as the Xfinity runner-up in Indy, he and KauligRacing made their first trips to the Brickyard’s historicvictory lane together.
On Saturday, it seemed almostlike a replay.
This time, the No. 16 Chevrolet made a daring pass on theoutside of Josh Berry, sidedrafting into the lead with help from the trailing Jones whomoved into second.
From there, a series of yellowflags turned the race into a shootout. Jones lined up behind Allmendinger for each restart and they worked in tandem to close it out, giving
Allmendinger his third win this season and eighth of his career. Noah Gragson finished third, and Berry was fourth.
“Of course Brandon wants to win the race, but he was great,” Allmendinger said after winning the longest Xfinity race in Michigan history, 139laps. “I think he knew if we got side by side we’d probably hurt ourselves and not give either one of us a chance to win.”
While Allmendinger was golfing in Indy on Monday, JR Motorsports announced it had hired Berry as the fulltime driver in the No. 8 car next season. On Friday, Berry finished 15th in the Truck Series race and, on Saturday, he charged from the 40th and final starting spot on the grid to the lead in the closing laps of regulation. He just couldn’t find a way to get around Allmendingerin overtime.