A.J. Allmendinger wrecks, still wins Food City 300 and NXS regular season title

The 2021 NASCAR Xfinity Series playoff grid and regular season championship were decided in dramatic fashion Friday night as A.J. Allmendinger and Austin Cindric took their season-long battle for the latter quite literally to the finish. In a wild overtime, the two ran and slammed coming to the line with a sideways Allmendinger crossing it in first to win the Food City 300 at Bristol Motor Speedway.

Noah Gragson, winner of the two most recent races, started on the pole and led the first four laps before Daniel Hemric took the position. Brett Moffitt, back after missing the previous week at Richmond with an illness, saw his return come to an abrupt halt and his playoff hopes disappear when he crashed after nine laps. Shortly before the competition caution, Justin Allgaier became the new leader and would hold the position to the stage win. Hemric, Gragson, Justin Haley, Sam Mayer, Allmendinger, Cindric, Brandon Jones, Ty Gibbs, and Harrison Burton rounded out the top ten.

Allgaier continued to lead for the early portion of Stage #2 until B.J. McLeod and Tommy Joe Martins wrecked on lap 104. Hemric re-assumed the lead for the restart and maintained the spot through two more cautions for Spencer Boyd, Jade Buford, and Matt Mills‘ accident (which resulted in Mills throwing a water bottle) and another involving Allgaier and Joe Graf Jr. Mills expressed his regret for the bottle toss, explaining on Twitter that he was “[j]ust aggravated” as he had “lost brakes going into 3 and ran into 52 (Gray Gaulding) and was trying to slow up and get out of the way cause the pedal was stuck to the floor and I get ran over by the 90 car (Boyd) who is 4 laps down.” By the end of the stage, Hemric led Allgaier, Gragson, Haley, Cindric, Allmendinger, Gibbs, Jones, Ryan Sieg, and Jeb Burton.

Mayer paced the field to the final segment start, and continued to lead across Carson Ware‘s lap 199 spin before Cindric passed him. Cindric led eight laps before Martins turned David Starr, likely in retaliation for the latter slowing him coming to the stage finish at Richmond and ruining his hopes at a stage win. Martins remarked on Twitter that he was “[s]orry I’m not sorry” for the spin.

Cindric continued to lead and appeared poised to pull away with the regular season championship when Mayer was spun by JR Motorsports team-mate Allgaier and collected Josh Williams with three laps before the checkered flag to set up overtime. The session began with a strong restart by Cindric on the outside line as Allgaier followed, while Allmendinger rode the inside. Contact between Cindric and Allmendinger coming to the white flag allowed Allgaier to force a three-wide battle and briefly spar with Cindric before more bumping dropped him back and into Riley Herbst, sinking his win hopes.

Allmendinger capitalised on the Cindric/Allgaier contact by committing to the inside and clearing them on the backstretch. A desperate move by Cindric on the inside exiting turn four enabled him to shrink the margin before the two hit each other as they approached the finish, sending them drifting across the finish. By a gap of just .082 seconds, Allmendinger slid across the line in first before the two hit the pit wall, sending Allmendinger back up the track where he was impacted by multiple cars.

Despite the chaos, Allmendinger secured his fourth win of the year, first of his career at Bristol, and the regular season title by ten points (1,043 to Cindric’s 1,033). Herbst’s third-place finish was enough to get him into the playoffs as the eleventh seed while Jeremy Clements finished thirteenth, one spot ahead of fellow playoff rival Brandon Brown, to clinch the twelfth and final spot; it is Clements’ first playoff appearance.

“I expected to get run into,” said Allmendinger. “It happened that previous corner. It’s frustrating getting hit that hard coming to checker, but we’re battling for the win. It’s Bristol, baby. That’s what it’s all about.”

“What happened on the last lap? The short summary is short track racing,” Cindric commented. “The long summary is a lot of contact. Five Star Bodies definitely made their money’s worth today. I’m surprised we were able to not cut a tyre down in that situation, but just a lot of hard racing, a lot of guys wanted to win the race. I feel like, and I say with confidence, we were probably the ones that deserved to, but that’s not how these play out with these green-white-checkers and sometimes you’re vulnerable. […]

“[The last-corner move] was the exact same thing A.J. did on the bottom of turn four the lap prior, just gassing up out of desperation. I would say it was a bit desperate, but monkey see, monkey do in that situation.”

Race results

Finish	Start	Number	Driver	Team	Manufacturer	Laps	Status
1	10	16	A.J. Allmendinger	Kaulig Racing	Chevrolet	306	Running
2	9	22	Austin Cindric	Team Penske	Ford	306	Running
3	8	98	Riley Herbst	Stewart-Haas Racing	Ford	306	Running
4	2	7	Justin Allgaier	JR Motorsports	Chevrolet	306	Running
5	16	19	Brandon Jones	Joe Gibbs Racing	Toyota	306	Running
6	5	11	Justin Haley	Kaulig Racing	Chevrolet	306	Running
7	6	20	Harrison Burton	Joe Gibbs Racing	Toyota	306	Running
8	17	2	Myatt Snider	Richard Childress Racing	Chevrolet	306	Running
9	22	8	Sam Mayer	JR Motorsports	Chevrolet	306	Running
10	4	18	Daniel Hemric	Joe Gibbs Racing	Toyota	306	Running
11	3	54	Ty Gibbs	Joe Gibbs Racing	Toyota	306	Running
12	1	9	Noah Gragson	JR Motorsports	Chevrolet	306	Running
13	13	51	Jeremy Clements	Jeremy Clements Racing	Chevrolet	306	Running
14	11	68	Brandon Brown	Brandonbilt Motorsports	Chevrolet	306	Running
15	31	23	Ty Dillon	Our Motorsports	Chevrolet	305	Running
16	32	31	Sage Karam	Jordan Anderson Racing	Chevrolet	305	Running
17	36	07	Joe Graf Jr.	SS-Green Light Racing	Chevrolet	305	Running
18	39	52	Gray Gaulding	Jimmy Means Racing	Chevrolet	305	Running
19	14	36	Alex Labbé	DGM Racing	Chevrolet	305	Running
20	18	92	Josh Williams	DGM Racing	Chevrolet	305	Running
21	21	26	Brandon Gdovic	Sam Hunt Racing	Toyota	305	Running
22	27	5	Stefan Parsons	B.J. McLeod Motorsports	Toyota	304	Running
23	23	44	Tommy Joe Martins	Martins Motorsports	Chevrolet	304	Running
24	7	10	Jeb Burton	Kaulig Racing	Chevrolet	303	Running
25	29	0	Jeffrey Earnhardt	JD Motorsports	Chevrolet	303	Running
26	37	15	B.J. McLeod*	JD Motorsports	Chevrolet	303	Running
27	30	48	Jade Buford #	Big Machine Racing	Chevrolet	302	Running
28	25	78	Jesse Little	B.J. McLeod Motorsports	Chevrolet	302	Running
29	19	47	Kyle Weatherman	Mike Harmon Racing	Chevrolet	301	Running
30	24	66	David Starr	MBM Motorsports	Toyota	300	Running
31	33	90	Spencer Boyd*	DGM Racing	Chevrolet	298	Running
32	34	17	Carson Ware	SS-Green Light Racing	Chevrolet	297	Running
33	38	61	Chad Finchum	MBM Motorsports	Toyota	282	Running
34	12	39	Ryan Sieg	RSS Racing	Ford	259	Fuel Pump
35	15	1	Josh Berry	JR Motorsports	Chevrolet	215	Running
36	26	99	Matt Mills	B.J. McLeod Motorsports	Chevrolet	108	Accident
37	28	6	Ryan Vargas	JD Motorsports	Chevrolet	94	Brakes
38	40	74	Bayley Currey*	Mike Harmon Racing	Chevrolet	53	Brakes
39	35	4	Landon Cassill	JD Motorsports	Chevrolet	40	Electrical
40	20	02	Brett Moffitt	Our Motorsports	Chevrolet	9	Accident

Bold – Qualified for playoffs
Italics – Competing for Rookie of the Year
* – Ineligible for Xfinity points