If you can outlast four red-flags in the final stage, parking your stock car in victory lane must feel pretty rewarding, or lucky. Justin Allgaier survived at EchoPark Speedway and there really is no another way to put it.
Once the Focused Health 250 came to an end, there was a total of 13 cautions. It felt like a pretty tame race during the first two stages, however, nine yellow flags flew in the final stage alone, with four of those yellow flags turning into a full-field red flag halt..
These weren’t “baby” cautions either, as there were several multi-car pileups, wrecks on the restart, and many severely damaged race-cars in a result from each crash. One of these wrecks took out Austin Hill, who is always the favorite entering a superspeedway race.
There were two NASCAR overtime restarts at the end of tonight’s race. Jeremy Clements approached the first attempt with thoughts that he would have a chance to battle for the win, however, after contact with Lavar Scott his No. 51 ended up wrecked before they even took the green flag.
The first multi-car wreck involved Corey Day and Taylor Gray in the tri-oval. Brandon Jones and a few other drivers ahead of them caused a stack-up. The No. 17 and 54 received the poor end of that situation, both drivers were done for the day.
It seems like JR Motorsports will be the only team leaving EchoPark Speedway with a grin, as they resulted in a 1-2 finish at the 1.5-mile superspeedway. Carson Kvapil finished behind Allgaier in second.
Brennan Poole was another driver who had a fantastic oppurtunity to win the race, he drove his No. 44 to the front of the field during the second NASCAR Overtime restart, took the white flag as the leader and was wrecked into the outside wall shortly after.
These types of races that are packed with chaos, cautions, and restarts just proves that anything can happen in the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series, some will love it, some will hate it.
The NOAPS continues in two weeks at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Tune into The CW at 4:00pm on July 25th to catch the action.