Justin Allgaier has done it again. A few weeks ago, Allgaier was close to retiring, but Dale Jr. and Kelley Earnhardt convinced him to stay with the No. 7 team. Little did they know that their faith in the veteran driver would be paid off at Homestead-Miami with yet another championship trophy. 

Dale Jr. and Rick Hendrick were there to greet Allgaier as he got out of his race car, finishing 7th. He didn’t win the race, but he finished ahead of the Chase drivers who were in contention during the race. More than an individual win, Allgaier saw this triumph as made possible because of the team effort. And with this trophy, Junior Motorsports has now added a fifth O’Reilly Series title to it’s name.

“The first one is for me, the first one I really enjoyed. This one is for all the men and women that are standing right back here. They have worked their tails off and to be honest with you, these two, my wife, my parents, everybody. Congrats to all the guys in the Chase this year it was super fun. Really proud of our whole team,” Allgaier said in the post-race interview with CW. 

After the Andrew Patterson crash that brought out the red flag, the leaders settled into the race and Allgaier was running inside the top 5. His only direct threat was Jesse Love if he had managed to win the race, but nothing of the sort happened. But Allgaier’s final few laps had his crew chief and his team biting their nails. 

Allgaier was running in the high lane, too close to the wall. A potential late-race caution would allow Love to make something in the closing moments, but thankfully the No. 7 car stayed clean and ensured they brought home the championship. 

When asked about the nervous final laps, the veteran driver replied, “I think my heart rate was pretty high if I’m being honest with you. I knew that was the lane we needed to run but you never really know what to expect and just a huge thank you to Kelley, Dale Jr., everybody at Junior Motorsports. Thought I was going to one and done, and here we are standing as champion. So I’m gonna enjoy the 2x, but so proud of what we’ve accomplished.”

Interestingly, NASCAR didn’t throw caution for debris on the track late in the race. The CW booth identified the object as an aluminum part that fell off a racecar. A late caution would’ve pushed the race into overtime, but NASCAR decided to keep the race green, without causing any drama. 

Meanwhile, Brandon Jones managed to sneak ahead of Kvapil late in the race and clinched his second win of the season. “I would say that we weren’t really the best car to begin this race,” Jones told The CW broadcast in victory lane. “We just consistently made better gains throughout on the car all night long…luckily, it played out for us.”

Kvapil led 36 laps, but fell short on the final run. Brent Crews finished third, and Jesse Love had to settle for a fourth-place finish. Parker Retzlaf completed the top 5. Sheldon Creed, Justin Allgaier, Austin Hill, Sam Mayer, and William Sawalich rounded off the top 10.