By David Morgan, Associate Editor
CONCORD, N.C. – Sometimes it’s just not meant to be.
Parker Kligerman came into Saturday’s Drive for the Cure 250 on the Charlotte Motor Speedway ROVAL in must-win territory to punch his ticket into the next round of the NASCAR Xfinity Series Playoffs and for a split-second, it looked like he had pulled it off.
Until he hadn’t.
Pitting for fresh tires inside of 15 laps to go in regulation, Kligerman made the drive of a lifetime, clawing his way forward on a restart with 11 laps remaining, eventually working his way past Shane van Gisbergen with nine laps remaining on the board.
From there, Kligerman would keep his No. 48 Big Machine Racing Chevrolet at the front of the field, holding off the charge from Sam Mayer down the stretch.
Pulling out to a lead of six car lengths as the field powered toward the white flag, Kligerman appeared to take the white before the caution flag flew for Leland Honeyman burying his car in the tire barrier.
Kligerman’s crew even started celebrating thinking the race was over and they had finally scored a win that had eluded them for so long. That is until the call came down from the scoring tower that the caution was called moments before Kligerman crossed the line to take the white, sending the race into overtime.
Gathering himself back up from his near miss for the overtime restart, Kligerman did his best to hold off Mayer’s charge, but in Turn 7 on the first lap of overtime, Mayer was able to cross under him and take the lead.
From then on Kligerman was left to try and play catch-up, but couldn’t recover the lost ground, eventually falling to sixth by the time the field got back to the checkered flag.
Playoffs over.
“I’m not gonna get up here and be angry at NASCAR for anything. I mean, I’ve watched plenty from the media side and the fan side and thought, oh, damn, that hurts. But here comes our restart and you just gotta buckle, you know, refocus. And we did that…
“But man, the laps leading up to that were some of the best I’ve ever driven my entire career. And I just knew, I had to be perfect and I was. I love this game. I really wanted it. I really, really, really wanted this.
“I wanted to keep going in the Playoffs, but it’s not to be. I was thankful to be in the position I was, I didn’t agree with not going for points. But Patrick and them stuck to this plan of trying to be in the position to win. And we did that and it…
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