XFINITY RECAP

• Saturday’s NEW HOLLAND 250, Michigan International WINNER: AJ Allmendinger

Standing in front of an enthusiastic Michigan International Speedway grandstands after his victory burnout, Kaulig Racing’s A.J. Allmendinger paused and took in the cheering crowd—on its feet and chanting his name “AJ! AJ! AJ!”

It was the second time in the past week that Allmendinger earned a trip to NASCAR Victory Lane. On Saturday he prevailed in triple overtime to take the New Holland 250 win—the third of the season and the eighth NASCAR Xfinity Series win of his career. He beat Joe Gibbs Racing driver Brandon Jones to the line by a mere .163-seconds and actually thanked Jones for the push on that last restart to let the two decide the trophy between themselves.

It was a high-action day on the Michigan high-banks, with Allmendinger answering his NASCAR Cup Series win at Indianapolis last week by leading a race best 70 of the 139 Xfinity Series laps on Saturday afternoon at Michigan.

The bottom of the scoreboard read like the top normally would. Championship points leader and fiverace winner Austin Cindric, Daniel Hemric, Justin Haley and Myatt Snider were all involved in a Lap 36 seven-car incident. Brandon Brown, who went into the race ranked 14th, hoping to point his way into the Playoffs during the final four regular season races was also involved.

Ty Gibbs, a two-race winner even though he is only competing part-time in 2021, made a solid run for another trophy, but spun out while running top 10 in the second overtime. He said on Twitter following the race, “Looks like I ran out of talent.”