Justin Allgaier held off a furious charge from his Penske Racing teammate Brad Keselowski in the closing laps to claim his first Nationwide Series victory in Saturday’s Scotts Turf Builder 300 at Bristol Motor Speedway.
Allgaier, the 2009 rookie of the year in the series, passed Keselowski after a restart with 27 laps remaining. Keselowski, the pole sitter, made several attempts to pass Allgaier for the lead, but wound up finishing 0.178 seconds behind him. MiamiHerald.com
“That battle with Brad at the end was awesome, and I couldn’t have been happier at the end to see two Penske cars up there running for the win,” Allgaier said in his first visit to Victory Lane.
Crew chief Chad Walter believed the win is the first of many for the 23-year-old Allgaier.
“I think the sky is the limit for this kid, and we just unleashed a monster,” Walter said. “He’s got a little confidence in him, and that’s a great thing. Look out. This kid can win.”
Keselowski, who led 73 laps after starting from the pole, said he didn’t mind Allgaier passing him on the restart with 27 laps to go because of an incident at Bristol last year, before they were teammates, when Keselowski wrecked Allgaier in a similar situation.
“I had one coming,” Keselowski smiled. ABC News
Kyle Busch was third and was followed by Carl Edwards and Kevin Harvick.
Harvick spun Joey Logano on the final lap to grab his top-five finish. Logano wound up 14th.
“I just raced with him and raced with him, and he kept chopping me and chopping me,” Harvick said. “I got in there and just got into the back of him a little bit and I hate that happened. You’ve just got to have a lane to race, you just got to do what you got to do.” NASCAR
Greg Biffle, Reed Sorenson, Mike Bliss, Jason Leffler and Scott Wimmer were among the top-10 finishers.
“We plugged along all day. We made some good changes and got the car to where it was decent. The 12 (Allgaier) and the 22 (Keselowski) were just too strong up front for us to contend with. We were better than the rest. We just didn’t have enough for the Penske cars today, but we’ll get some work done here,’’ said Busch. “We’ve always been one of the fastest cars here at Bristol, but this time we missed out on just a little something. Maybe we’ll find it and come back here in August and get back after it.” AHN
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NASCAR Nationwide Series: Scotts Turf Builder 300 at Bristol - Race Results
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