37-year-old Justin Allgaier is usually seen behind the #7 Chevrolet Camaro of JR Motorsports in the Xfinity Series field. But last Sunday, he was piloting the #5 Chevrolet Camaro of Hendrick Motorsports in the Coca-Cola 600. Substituting in for Kyle Larson, who was held up at Indianapolis due to bad weather, Allgaier handed himself an important task: not to wreck the car.
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Aware of how important it was to keep the car intact and hand it over to Larson – when he did eventually arrive – in a good spot to win the race, Allgaier drove it with every inch of caution. By Lap 249 he had moved it from the back of the field to 13th place when the race was ended due to rain. Larson never got to turn a lap in his car but Allgaier’s efforts did not go unnoticed.
The Hendrick Motorsports crew and chief Cliff Daniels thanked him for his help and gave him hugs as he walked back through the pit road. Interestingly, this is not the first time that he has substituted for a Hendrick Motorsports driver. Back in 2020, he replaced Jimmie Johnson in an Indianapolis race after the former champion tested positive for COVID.
He’d driven just 17 laps before wrecking the icon’s car and heading back home. It was this experience that had pushed him to drive Larson’s car with caution. He’d told Daniels before getting into it, “The last thing I want to do is wreck this thing.” Fortunately, nothing of the sort happened. The 13th-place result was his best in the premier series since 2016.
Is a full-time move to the Cup Series on the cards for Allgaier?
While he would love to take a step ahead to the Cup Series permanently, Allgaier has a strong reason to stay with JR Motorsports. He says to Autoweek, “At the end of the day, is that [driving in the Cup Series full-time] something that I still wish I could check off my bucket list? Yeah, it is. But the old saying is if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. I’m loving what I do right now.”
Even though he has been a regular season champion and won the Xfinity Most Popular Driver multiple times, he is yet to win his first championship in the second tier. Maybe doing it will propel him to desire a full-time Cup Series ride like never before. For now, the man’s future appears set with Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s outfit.
