Justin Allgaier Holds Off Jesse Love For Phoenix O'Reilly Series Win

While it didn’t look like Justin Allgaier would be celebrating a third career NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series win at Phoenix Raceway for 95 percent of Saturday night’s GOVX 200, the driver of the No. 7 JR Motorsports Chevrolet came to life, and was at his best when it mattered most.

With 11 laps to go, Allgaier made a strong pass in the outside lane on Jesse Love, the defending series champion, in Turns 3 and 4, which allowed him to take the lead for the first time on the night. Love, who turned the fastest lap of the race and led a race-high 114 laps, was unable to mount a comeback, as Allgaier, the 2024 series champion, was able to keep Love at bay as he collected the race win.

Allgaier, who had to bounce back from an issue on pit road early in the race, was proud of his new crew chief Andrew Overstreet and his entire No. 7 team for fighting back into contention for the win.

“Just so proud of this team,” Allgaier said in victory lane. “Andrew Overstreet has been doing a great job taking over, and he’s been telling me all week, ‘This is our house, we’re going to go take it,’ and it wasn’t for lack of adversity. It seems like those are the ones that are really great for us. But really proud of this team, everybody on the 7 team, we had an issue on that first pit stop, and these boys rebounded, and did a great job.”

For Allgaier, one of the most decorated drivers in NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series history, Saturday night’s win marked the 29th of his illustrious career. While he experienced the joy of victory on Saturday night, Allgaier noted that he was sad that his family wasn’t at the track to help celebrate.

“It was my 20th wedding anniversary this week, and my wife and kids aren’t here. So, I’m sad for that,” Allgaier said. “But great battle there with Jesse. You know, I just knew we had to go on that last restart, and we did that. So, it never gets old winning.”

With the win, Allgaier was able to jump his way from third in the championship standings to the points lead. Allgaier now holds a three-point advantage over Love, who sits second, and he holds a five-point buffer over Austin Hill, Love’s Richard Childress Racing teammate.

Love, the driver of the No. 2 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet, would cross the finish line 0.449 seconds shy of his first win of the 2026 season. Love, who has three career wins, including his championship-securing win at Phoenix last fall, now has four runner-up finishes through his 70 career starts.

While it was ultimately a good points night for the 21-year-old, Love was in no mood to find any silver linings after seeing the win slip through his grasp on Saturday night.

“Yeah, if I show up to run second, and just collect points,” Love responded when asked by The CW if the points lessened the pain of the loss, “but obviously not why I’m here. And yeah, just beyond frustrated with myself. Yeah, I just don’t know what to say. I’m upset with myself.”

Carson Kvapil, who, heading into the final pit stop sequence of the night, looked like he may be heading to his first career win, would come home with a third-place finish in the No. 1 JR Motorsports Chevrolet.

Sheldon Creed, like Kvapil, had a stretch in the late portion of Saturday night’s race, where it looked like he could take his second career win, held on for a fourth-place result, ahead of Sam Mayer, his Haas Factory Team teammate, who came home in fifth.

Sammy Smith, Jeb Burton, Rajah Caruth, Corey Day, and Anthony Alfredo rounded out the top-10 finishers in Saturday night’s GOVX 200 at the 1-mile Phoenix Raceway, located in Avondale, AZ.

The solid eighth-place run for Caruth is a huge deal, as this was his first race behind the wheel of the No. 32 Jordan Anderson Racing Chevrolet this year. Caruth, who has asserted himself as a bonafide championship contender, will split his time between the No. 32 team and the No. 88 JR Motorsports team. As he showed on Saturday night, the No. 32 team likely won’t be a weakness for his quest at a championship.

And for Alfredo, who will substitute for Alex Bowman in Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series event at Phoenix, this 10th-place result marks his best finish of the season with his new Viking Motorsports team.

Next up for the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series is The LiUNA! at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Saturday, March 14. That race will be televised on The CW, and television coverage of that race is set to begin at 5:30 PM ET. The Performance Racing Network (PRN) and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio will provide the radio broadcast of the event at Las Vegas.

GOVX 200 Race Results

Fin	Car	Driver	Laps	Diff
1	7	Justin Allgaier	200	—
2	2	Jesse Love (S2) (X)	200	0.449
3	1	Carson Kvapil	200	0.879
4	00	Sheldon Creed	200	2.984
5	41	Sam Mayer	200	3.220
6	8	Sammy Smith (S1)	200	4.365
7	27	Jeb Burton	200	4.704
8	32	Rajah Caruth	200	5.086
9	17	Corey Day	200	6.231
10	96	Anthony Alfredo	200	6.529
11	51	Jeremy Clements	200	7.040
12	21	Austin Hill	200	7.045
13	88	William Byron (i)	200	7.294
14	99	Parker Retzlaff	200	7.352
15	54	Taylor Gray	200	10.040
16	20	Brandon Jones	200	11.977
17	39	Ryan Sieg	200	14.057
18	19	Brent Crews #	200	23.114
19	55	Joey Gase	200	29.612
20	52	Daniel Dye (i)	199	1 lap
21	5	Chandler Smith (i)	199	1 lap
22	87	Austin Green	199	1 lap
23	24	Harrison Burton	199	1 lap
24	28	Kyle Sieg	199	1 lap
25	26	Dean Thompson	199	1 lap
26	48	Patrick Staropoli #	199	1 lap
27	44	Brennan Poole	199	1 lap
28	31	Blaine Perkins	198	2 laps
29	0	Garrett Smithley	198	2 laps
30	07	Josh Bilicki	197	3 laps
31	42	Nathan Byrd	197	3 laps
32	91	Mason Maggio	196	4 laps
33	45	Lavar Scott #	195	5 laps
34	30	Austin J. Hill	195	5 laps
35	25	Nick Sanchez	193	7 laps
36	74	Dawson Cram	192	8 laps
37	18	William Sawalich	173	Out
38	02	Ryan Ellis	13	Out

(S1) Stage 1 winner
(S2) Stage 2 winner
(X) Xfinity Fastest Lap
# Rooie of the Year contender
(i) ineligible to score points

Time of Race: 2 hours, 7 minutes, 47 seconds
Average Speed: 93.909 mph
Margin of Victory: 0.449 seconds
Cautions: 4 for 37 laps
Lead Changes: 20 among 9 drivers

This article was originally published on www.si.com/onsi/racing-america as Justin Allgaier Holds Off Jesse Love For Phoenix O’Reilly Series Win.

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