“He was obviously really good,” Justin Allgaier reluctantly admitted about his rival on Saturday. Kyle Larson’s resolve to do a weekend sweep at Bristol Motor Speedway was washed away on Friday – but his motive was intact. Clenching his teeth about a frustrating 2nd-place finish in the Craftsman Truck Series and resolving to pay tribute to late Hendrick Motorsports veteran Jon Edwards, Larson dominated in Xfinity. However, Allgaier brushed off Larson’s sparkle.

In fact, Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s driver was the only one who could break Kyle Larson’s iron lead. During the SciAps 300 race, the HMS driver led a whopping 277 of 300 laps. But that small gap is still eye-catching – and Justin Allgaier was convinced he could make it larger.

Justin Allgaier is disappointed despite hefty prize

For the JR Motorsports No. 7 driver, this year has been like a dream. Justin Allgaier started 2025 with a bang, leading Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s team on its first Cup Series race, the Daytona 500, finishing in the top 10! Then he followed with two Xfinity wins in Las Vegas and Homestead. Currently, he is atop the standings and riding a 3rd-place finish streak – which continued at Bristol Motor Speedway. Carson Kvapil outmaneuvered Allgaier on lap 298 by taking second place – yet Allgaier ended up winning the $100,000 Xfinity Dash 4 Cash bonus as the highest finisher among four eligible drivers. Despite cashing in big and landing another good weekend, Allgaier’s mind lingered around the start of the final stage in the Bristol race.

On the lap 182 restart, Justin Allgaier snatched Kyle Larson’s seemingly indestructible lead. Speaking on the restart, NASCAR reporter Peter Stratta asked Allgaier if Larson felt ‘vulnerable’ during the restarts. Allgaier replied, “Super vulnerable. I think I would have beat him on all of them when we had the bottom on the last one.” Then he continued to explain what stopped him: “Some stuff kind of happened, and I was afraid that they were going to call it. So I had to check up a little bit, and I kind of got side-by-side. You know, I felt like our strength today was getting out of the box. I felt like we were able to make either lane work. Just wasn’t quite enough to clear him.” Larson’s pace was too much for Dale Jr.’s ace at the end of the day. However, when Allgaier did get the lead, it was pure skill from Larson mixed with a tinge of bad luck that led to it slipping away.

The #7 held onto the lead for ten circuits until receiving Larson’s bump in Turn 1. The HMS driver moved him up the track and shot past into the race-winning lead. As Allgaier tried to catch up, Mason Massey’s lapped car blocked the #7’s line off Turn 4. Justin Allgaier lamented this fatal turn of events: “I think maneuverability was a little bit of it. You know, when we had the big moment out there in 1, it really, really upset the tires for a while. It was really hard to kind of get it back. That took me a while to keep going, and some frustration to myself running into a lapped car.”

Well, a second-place finish was also within Justin Allgaier’s reach until his younger teammate beat him. But Allgaier acted like the ideal peer and lauded the runner-up finisher.

A noble acceptance of defeat

Besides Justin Allgaier, one other driver seemed capable of toppling Kyle Larson’s lead. That was Carson Kvapil, driver of the No. 1 JR Motorsports Chevrolet. The 21-year-old Xfinity Series rookie ventured into NASCAR’s second tier only last year after loads of success in the CARS Tour. His debut Xfinity race at Martinsville ended with a remarkable 4th-place finish. So you can imagine what kind of a force Kvapil was at Bristol Motor Speedway. The 2023 CARS Tour champion advanced to the front row by the end of the race, throwing Justin Allgaier off his second place by lap 298. He hounded Kyle Larson from then on, as the latter ultimately finished 2.054 seconds ahead of Kvapil.

Justin Allgaier lost his runner-up chances to Kvapil, but he did not mind. Allgaier heaped praises for Kvapil instead: “He’s done a great job, and we talked a lot before the race. Him and [crew chief] Andrew [Overstreet], they’re working really well together and that whole 1 team, and really just proud of the effort as our whole shop… They’re [Carson Kvapil and Sammy Smith] both great race car drivers. They’re young, and they’re going to be threats when we come back here in the fall, and they’re going to be threats for the rest of the year going down to the end of the year for a championship. I’m proud of the effort that they’re putting in.” Kvapil is currently 6th in the championship standings and just three points behind his teammate Connor Zilisch for the series Rookie of the Year point lead.

Evidently, Justin Allgaier had some good and sad takeaways from Bristol. But he can be proud of the fact that he managed to rattle Kyle Larson’s winning stance.