Despite an early-race setback on pit road that set him back in the field, Allmendinger rebounded and led a race-high 42 of 62 laps.
Allmendinger reclaimed the lead for the final time on a restart on Lap 45 and cruised to a 2.084-second win over Cup Series regular Alex Bowman.
The win is Allmendinger’s third of the year and all have come on road courses (his other wins were at Circuit of the Americas and Portland). It’s also the 13th victory of his career.
“God, I love this place. Indy, baby! Let’s go,” Allmendinger said. “I can’t thank everybody at Kaulig Racing, all the men and women, enough. We struggled, we worked hard to get a little bit better. I knew Bowman was really good on the long runs so I tried to gap him as much as I could. God, I love Indy.
“We win and lose as a team but I knew the way our car was set up, it was not very good in traffic. We had a little bit of a brake issue, too. The guys recovered really well. I was just frustrated because we gave up stage points a little bit there as well.
“But at this point, points don’t mean a damn thing. We’re kissing the bricks!”
Justin Allgaier fought a wild battle with Ross Chastain to finally claim third place on the final lap while Chase Briscoe rounded out the top-five.
Completing the top-10 were Riley Herbst, Sam Mayer, Ty Gibbs, Austin Hill and Noah Gragson.
Stage 3
Following the break between Stages 2 and 3, several lead-lap cars pit but Bowman was among those who stayed out and inherited the lead.
Daniel Hemric was penalized for speeding on pit road while Andy Lally, Jeremy Clements and Gibbs were penalized for commitment line violations. All had to restart from the rear of the field.
When the race resumed on Lap 45, Bowman was followed by Allmendinger, Allgaier and Sheldon Creed.
Allmendinger cleared Bowman in Turn 1 to return to the lead.
On Lap 47, Creed briefly spun off course after contact with Chastain but no caution was called.
With 10 laps remaining, Allmendinger opened up a 3-second lead over Bowman as Chastain ran third, more than eight seconds behind the leader.
Briscoe got around Chastain and moved into the third position on Lap 54.
With five laps to go, Allmendinger remained ahead of Bowman by 2.5 seconds as Chastain moved back into third.
Stage 2
With many teams electing to pit under green before the stage break, Josh Berry stayed out and easily claimed the Stage 2 win over Alex Labbe.
Kaz Grala was third, Sage Karam fourth and Preston…
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