Story by Matthew Thomerson

DARLINGTON, SC – In a race dominated by Kyle Larson, Justin Allgaier was the victor in the Sports Clips Haircuts VFW Help A Hero 200 at Darlington Raceway on Saturday after a late-race yellow ensued. 

Starting fourth, Allgaier stayed in the top-five for the duration of the first two stages. It seemed it’d be a solid finish but not a winning one until a caution flew on Lap 128 due to Alex Labbe, Austin Hill, Kyle Sieg and Lavar Scott crashing on the backstretch. A last round of pit stops ensued, with Allgaier coming out second. He quickly worked his way to first on the restart and drove off to take the checkered flag.

“We have not been the best on pit road all year,” Allgaier said. “These guys have never quit. They have gone to work. They’ve never given up, and they were on top of it all day on pit road. Huge thank you to these guys…We definitely weren’t the best all day. Kyle (Larson) obviously was amazing. He had us covered.”

Allgaier, the 2024 O’Reilly Auto Parts Series Champion, has had an on-par start to the season as he now has two wins and another Darlington trophy. It’s the 30th victory of his career and his fourth at Darlington Raceway. 

Coming home second was Brandon Jones, falling one spot short of winning back-to-back spring Darlington races. Starting eighth, it appeared a status quo day for the driver of the No. 20 Toyota, finishing fourth in Stage 1 and third in Stage 2. Jones vaulted to the lead on the last set of stops but couldn’t hold off Allgaier and settled for second.

“We watched the Truck race, and even this race, we felt like the bottom lane all day was kind of the dominate place to be on restarts.” Jones said. “Both lanes, you really couldn’t get much help, we were all wheel spinning I think and just trying to make as much grip as we could. The 7 (Justin Allgaier) just kept getting just barely better launches than I could on that second lane, and he had just a little more juice in the tank on the short run today. We were matching, if not slightly better on the long run, but just ran out of laps there at the end, but this is what we needed with the 20 group.”

Finishing third was Christopher Bell, on a day that wasn’t quite what the Joe Gibbs Racing driver wanted it to be. Bell started second, but fell seconds back at the start as no one could match Larson’s pace. Bell’s pace began to taper off late, and seemed out of contention for the win until the final caution. A good pit stop set him up to battle for the win but ultimately was unable to get to Allgaier or Jones in the end.

“Yeah, we definitely lost the handle of it in stage two and fell back.” Bell said. “We had a couple of good pit stops,and good adjustments that got us back up to the front. It just felt like we were on the wrong side of the track. Really loose in the day light, and then really tight when it got shaded up. I don’t know. It was a lot of fun out there. I’m really happy to Sport Clips Supra home third. I know that’s not what they are looking for, but got a good finish out of it.”

The aforementioned Larson, led the most laps along with sweeping the Stages but a bad stop lost him four spots and he ultimately finished fourth. Carson Kvapil rounded out the top-five with Corey Day, Sheldon Creed, Parker Retzlaff, Sammy Smith, and Sam Mayer rounding out the top-10. 

There were six lead changes among four leaders. 

The caution flew three times for 25 laps.

Allgaier leads Jesse Love in the standings by 52 points. 

Up next, The O’Reilly Auto Parts Series heads to Martinsville Speedway for the NFPA 250. Coverage begins on the CW at 3:30 p.m. ET on Saturday, March 28.

Photo Credit: Hunter Thomas/TheFourthTurn.com