TALLADEGA – What ended up being a failed risky bet for at least one driver opened the door for another driver to have the biggest moment of his career in Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series race.
Spencer Gallagher, the driver of GMS Racing’s number 23 Allegiant Chevrolet, led the first lap of his career at the Talladega Superspeedway, which happened to be the final lap of Saturday’s Sparks Energy 300.
“This is a day I will remember for the rest of my life,” Gallagher said, after winning Saturday’s race. “Today was the culmination of what we at GMS had worked for, for a year. We brought an incredible race car to the track. These guys put it together amazingly well.”
“We had very good speed all day here and anyone that knows what they’re talking about, that’s going to be a big deciding factor in coming down to the end at a place like this.”
Gallagher was able to hold on to the race lead on the last lap by using defensive driving tactics around the 2.66-mile track. However, his good fortune came after Justin Allgaier and others experienced misfortune.
Allgaier and Austin Cindric both looked to be cruising to possible fuel-mileage wins at various stages of the race until they ran out of fuel. Allgaier’s fuel tank went dry during a caution flag near the end of the race.
Yet, he was still able to rally his Trademark Nitrogen Chevrolet up to third place before the checkered flag was thrown.
“I was really disappointed when the caution came out to be honest with you, when Daniel [Hemric] had his issue,” Allgaier said. “Because at that point, we were a straightaway or more ahead of second and I thought it was going to work out OK. Obviously, in hindsight, we kind of questioned if would we have made it all the way to the end of the race.”
“I was really, really surprised that we did run out,” he added.
Another one of the day’s big winners was veteran NASCAR driver Elliott Sadler, who scored a fifth-place finish, which gave him the top finish among the series’ “Dash for Cash” qualifiers and a $100,000 bonus.”
“It feels good – I mean, for the up-and-down day we had, for us to kind of battle back at the end, it felt good.”
Saturday’s event is a prelude to Sunday’s Monster Energy Cup Series Geico 500, the grand finale of the Talladega spring race weekend. That event is slated for 1 p.m. CT and will be broadcast nationally on FOX.
@Jeff_Poor is a graduate of Auburn University and is the editor of Breitbart TV.
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