AJ Allmendinger Wins Verizon 200 Amid Curb Controversy in First Cup Race on IMS Road Course

AJ Allmendinger survived two late red flags and multiple attempts at an overtime finish to win the Verizon 200, becoming the first NASCAR Cup Series driver to win on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s road course in a chaotic finish, his first Cup win since Watkins Glen in 2014.

On the final overtime restart, Allmendinger inherited the lead after leader Denny Hamlin was spun by Chase Briscoe heading to turn nine, and Briscoe was handed a stop-and-go penalty for driving through the grass after missing turn one. As Briscoe served his penalty, Allmendinger took the lead and led the final lap to give Kauling Racing their first ever Cup Series victory.

William Byron won the inaugural pole on the road course this morning, and led the field to green alongside the rookie Briscoe, with the field managing to get through the first turn cleanly. Briscoe put the pressure on Byron to take the lead on the second lap in turn seven as the top four of Briscoe, Byron, Chase Elliott and Kyle Larson began to pull away from the field.

On lap 13, drivers began to make their first stops before the end of stage one. Joey Logano, Ross Chastain and Hamlin were among those who pit, while the top four pit the very next lap. Briscoe’s stop took a little longer than the others, as the team worked to clear grass from the grill of his Stewart-Haas Racing Ford.

Michael McDowell inherited the lead from the pit cycle, but was passed with two laps to go in the stage by Tyler Reddick in turn 12, taking the stage win from the Daytona 500 winner. Reddick’s teammate Austin Dillon came home in third, with Erik Jones, Ryan Preece, Brad Keselowski, Ricky Stenhouse, Justin Haley, Briscoe and Elliott picking up stage points.

Keselowski led the field to green after staying out as Briscoe had to reset his ECU and lost a few spots, restarting fifth. Keselowski got an incredible start as Elliott was slow, maintaining the lead through the chaos of turn one. With his fresh tyres, Byron sent it down the inside of turn seven to battle Keselowski, but he was unable to make the move and allowed his teammate Elliott in front of him. Side by side down the frontstretch, Elliott took the lead before turn one, as Byron continued to drop spots after battling with Logano for third with a poor run through the chicane of turns five and six.

As the stage wound down, Larson began hunting down his teammate Elliott for the lead. Briscoe and Byron were the first of the leaders to pit on lap 33, making their stops before the stage end. Both the leaders came in on the next lap, with Elliott beating Larson off of pit road for the provisional race lead. Reddick grabbed the stage win yet again, followed by Dillon, Preece, Stenhouse, DiBennedetto, Haley, Corey LaJoie, Andy Lally, Larson and Elliott. The current championship leader able to steal ninth from his teammate after a thrilling battle across the entire final lap. Larson finally made the move stick to take the position, points and provisional lead.

At the start of stage three Larson kept the lead from Elliott, with Byron sliding past Kyle Busch for third. Further back in the pack, Stenhouse and Aric Almirola got stacked up on the backstretch spun out of turn six, and soon a caution was thrown for debris underneath the curb in turn six. The caution did not come from the drivers, as this piece of debris was worked on during the stage caution, but the issue needed more fixing.

Larson took the green again with 39 laps to go and took his lead back, with Byron taking second place from Elliott. Larson began to check out, building up a large gap to Elliott, but with ten laps to go a caution was thrown for debris at the exit of turn six.

Many of the leaders came into the pits, with Hamlin and Kurt Busch among the few that stayed out. Larson won the battle off of pit road followed by Byron, but Elliott’s had issues on pit road as the car came down off the jack before service was complete. Larson restarted sixth as the green flag dropped and immediately jumped up to third by turn nine.

The next lap around, the exit of turn six became a scrap heap, as multiple cars hit the curb that received work earlier in the race, claiming frontrunners like Logano, Byron, Kyle Busch, Daniel Suarez, Bell and more. The race was red flagged with four laps to go while crews removed the curb, and all drivers involved were unharmed. There was also a very extensive cleanup needed for oil trailed from turns one to four by James Davison.

The race went back to green for a green-white-checkered overtime finish with Hamlin and Larson, the regular season championship leaders, dueling for the win. Larson went wide in turn one looking for an outside pass but Briscoe and DiBennedetto pushed by as Larson was shoved down the order. Turn six once again caused a calamity on the restart, as McDowell was spun throwing smoke across the track and collecting many others like Dillon, Cole Custer, Reddick, Truex and more, necessitating another red flag.

At the restart Briscoe was forced off course into the grass in turn one, but re joined staying close with Hamlin. He was given a stop and go penalty as Hamlin spun going to turn nine, handing the lead to Allmendinger heading to the white flag. The road course ace was clear of second place Ryan Blaney, and brought home the victory.

“I was so mad yesterday, I wanted to win so bad,” Allmendinger said post-race, referencing his second place finish in the Xfinity race yesterday.

“In my wildest dreams I could have never imagined the way that just played out.”

“It was survival of the fittest, we probably had an eighth to tenth place car, I sped on pit road, I thought we were going to finish twelfth to fifteenth, and then those restarts were just insane. It’s great when you have a car owner (Matt Kaulig) that just says ‘go get me trophies’, he doesn’t care if that thing is torn up.”

Despite his heartbreaking spin, Hamlin has been locked into the Playoffs on points, meaning that with two races left only one more playoff spot is up for grabs.

Verizon 200 Official Results

RANK	CAR NO.	DRIVER	TEAM	MANUFACTURER	LAPS	STATUS
1	16	A.J. Allmendinger	Kaulig Racing	Chevrolet	95	RUNNING
2	12	Ryan Blaney	Team Penske	Ford	95	RUNNING
3	5	Kyle Larson	Hendrick Motorsports	Chevrolet	95	RUNNING
4	9	Chase Elliott	Hendrick Motorsports	Chevrolet	95	RUNNING
5	21	Matt DiBenedetto	Wood Brothers Racing	Ford	95	RUNNING
6	1	Kurt Busch	Chip Ganassi Racing	Chevrolet	95	RUNNING
7	43	Erik Jones	Richard Petty Motorsports	Chevrolet	95	RUNNING
8	77	Justin Haley*	Spire Motorsports	Chevrolet	95	RUNNING
9	33	Austin Cindric*	Team Penske	Ford	95	RUNNING
10	6	Ryan Newman	Roush Fenway Racing	Ford	95	RUNNING
11	47	Ricky Stenhouse Jr.	JTG Daugherty Racing	Chevrolet	95	RUNNING
12	17	Chris Buescher	Roush Fenway Racing	Ford	95	RUNNING
13	23	Bubba Wallace	23XI Racing	Toyota	95	RUNNING
14	4	Kevin Harvick	Stewart-Haas Racing	Ford	95	RUNNING
15	19	Martin Truex Jr.	Joe Gibbs Racing	Toyota	95	RUNNING
16	7	Corey Lajoie	Spire Motorsports	Chevrolet	95	RUNNING
17	48	Alex Bowman	Hendrick Motorsports	Chevrolet	95	RUNNING
18	52	Josh Bilicki	Rick Ware Racing	Ford	95	RUNNING
19	10	Aric Almirola	Stewart-Haas Racing	Ford	95	RUNNING
20	18	Kyle Busch	Joe Gibbs Racing	Toyota	95	RUNNING
21	8	Tyler Reddick	Richard Childress Racing	Chevrolet	95	RUNNING
22	00	Quin Houff	StarCom Racing	Chevrolet	95	RUNNING
23	11	Denny Hamlin	Joe Gibbs Racing	Toyota	95	RUNNING
24	2	Brad Keselowski	Team Penske	Ford	95	RUNNING
25	41	Cole Custer	Stewart-Haas Racing	Ford	94	RUNNING
26	14	Chase Briscoe	Stewart-Haas Racing	Ford	94	RUNNING
27	66	Timmy Hill	MBM Motorsports	Toyota	94	RUNNING
28	53	Garrett Smithley	Rick Ware Racing	Ford	94	RUNNING
29	42	Ross Chastain	Chip Ganassi Racing	Chevrolet	93	RUNNING
30	34	Michael McDowell	Front Row Motorsports	Ford	88	CRASH
31	3	Austin Dillon	Richard Childress Racing	Chevrolet	88	CRASH
32	15	James Davison	Rick Ware Racing	Chevrolet	80	CRASH
33	24	William Byron	Hendrick Motorsports	Chevrolet	77	CRASH
34	22	Joey Logano	Team Penske	Ford	77	CRASH
35	37	Ryan Preece	JTG Daugherty Racing	Chevrolet	77	CRASH
36	20	Christopher Bell	Joe Gibbs Racing	Toyota	77	CRASH
37	99	Daniel Suarez	Trackhouse Racing Team	Chevrolet	77	CRASH
38	38	Anthony Alfredo	Front Row Motorsports	Ford	68	MECHANICAL
39	78	Andy Lally	Live Fast Motorsports	Ford	55	MECHANICAL
40	51	Cody Ware	Rick Ware Racing	Chevrolet	46	CRASH

Italics – Competing for Rookie of the Year
* – Ineligible for Cup points