Noah Gragson may have stolen the show with four straight NASCAR Xfinity Series wins in September, but AJ Allmendinger went out and reminded everyone why he was the 2022 regular season champion in the first half of October.
He broke through with his first superspeedway via a last-lap pass at Talladega Superspeedway on Oct. 1, and he followed it up with his fourth win in as many Charlotte Motor Speedway ROVAL starts on Oct. 8 to close out the Round of 12. At that point, Allmendinger had five wins, top-10 finishes in 26 of the 29 races and an average finish of 5.9.
On Friday night (Oct. 14), Allmendinger continued his hot streak with his fifth pole of the season for Saturday’s (Oct. 15) Alsco Uniforms 302 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. With a 22-point advantage over the playoff cut line and a front row starting spot to begin the Round of 8, everything was going Allmendinger’s way.
Until it wasn’t. Trouble began early in the afternoon for the No. 16 team, as Allmendinger was passed by Gragson after leading the first six laps. Allmendinger soon began to backslide with an ill-handling car, and he dropped to seventh by the end of stage one. The Kaulig Racing team had no answers for stage two either, as Allmendinger only reached 10th to grab the final stage point.
Despite the early struggles after entering the day with high expectations, Allmendinger’s day was far from over. Both stage one and stage two ran caution free, so there was little time for Allmendinger and the No. 16 team to make adjustments to the car or gain positions on restarts. As lap 90 marked the final guaranteed caution, it was crucial for the team to make the right adjustments for the final stage.
Indeed, things started to turn in the right direction. Allmendinger began climbing his way up through the top 10 and found himself just outside the top five with 60 laps remaining; the No. 16 team then pulled its weight during a round of green-flag pit stops in the middle of the stage.
The pivotal moment in the race came on lap 161, as the third caution and the first for an incident was brought out after Brandon Jones spun in turn 1.
Well, almost spun. Onboard replays showed that while the No. 19 car got sideways in the corner, the caution was waved even after he made a great save to keep his car going in the right direction. With mounting criticism toward race control in the last month or so, the caution for Jones marked another head-scratching decision in a season that has been…
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