“I think half of my gray hair that have is from this place”: Justin Allgaier reacts after finally winning at Daytona

Justin Allgaier won the Wawa 250 NASCAR Xfinity race at Daytona International Speedway on Friday (August 25). He made his first trip to the victory lane at the famed Speedway in his 26th start.

The #7 JR Motorsports Chevrolet driver started the race in the sixth row and managed to avoid the chaos as the race got extended to a double overtime finish. In the final lap, he held off Sheldon Creed by 0.005 seconds to take his first win at Daytona.

Justin Allgaier had finished second twice on the 2.5-mile Speedway at Daytona. In the season opener earlier in February, he was in the lead as he took the white flag but dropped down to third at the end of the race. Allgaier finally breathed a sigh of relief on Friday night as he took the checkered flag.

"I think half of my gray hair that have is from this place, I feel I have been coming here forever and we've been so close to winning and just haven't been able to get it done," the 37-year-old said on NASCAR SiriusXM radio.

Justin Allgaier, Trevor Bayne in the #19 Toyota, and Austin Hill were in control in the final stage of the race. However, Bayne and Hill collided at the front in a restart with two laps left causing a multi-car wreck.

Allgaier kept his nerve in the multiple overtime restarts with Sheldon Creed giving him a run for his money in the final restart. He also recounted that switching to low-fuel protocol early in the race allowed him to fight for the win.

Allgaier said:

"Those restarts at the end... I don't even know where to begin, I mean the help that we had on the restarts and the shoving that we had. Obviously being close on fuel not being out but with the few times we have run out of gas, went into low fuel protocol way early, just because we wanted to make sure that we didn't wanted to run out of gas."

With his second victory of the season, Justin Allgaier is currently third in the playoff standings.

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Justin Allgaier reflects on his win after an early setback

The #7 Chevrolet driver was dropped to the rear of the field and received a passthrough on the initial restart for violations during inspection. Despite the multiple setbacks he rallied through the field to secure his 21st NASCAR Xfinity win.

“We had an oversight yesterday when we brought a car to the track and put it through inspection, and it wasn’t where we wanted… and that cost us a pass-through, but the team never quit, never gave up, and we rallied, and obviously we put ourselves in a good position. The strategy was awesome,” he said post-race.

With two races left in the regular season, the Xfinity Series heads to Darlington Raceway next weekend.