Veteran A.J. Allmendinger not only leads the NASCAR Xfinity Series driver standings, but he returns to Las Vegas Motor Speedway for Saturday afternoon’s Alsco Uniforms 300 (4:30 p.m. ET on FS1, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) as defending race winner, taking a .978-second win over eventual 2021 champion Daniel Hemric in last year’s March race at the track.
Two races into the 2022 season, Allmendinger, 40, currently holds a slim 1-point lead over Vegas-native Noah Gragson in the championship standings. And although Gragson, 23, has yet to win on his “home track,” last year’s championship finalist has finished top-10 in all six career starts on the 1.5-mile speedway. His best showing is a runner-up finish in 2020 and he’s got a pair of third-place finishes too, including last year’s Playoff race.
Gragson is the only driver with top-five finishes in both 2022 races with a third place at Daytona and a runner-up effort at California last week in the No. 9 JR Motorsports Chevrolet. His 37 laps led on the season in second-most to Hemric’s 48 laps out front.
The Las Vegas native can expect to be challenged mightily by his JR Motorsports teammates this weekend, including Josh Berry, who won the Fall race at Las Vegas last year and joins Allmendinger as the only two fulltime series drivers with victories at Vegas this weekend.
“We’re coming back to Vegas with the same team that I won with last year at this place, so the confidence is high going into the weekend,” said Berry, who drives the No. 8 JR Motorsports Chevrolet.
“We made big strides last weekend finding the balance and we were in contention at the end, so I know this Tire Pros Camaro has speed. Taking everything we learned from last weekend in Fontana (Calif.) and last year from Vegas, there’s no reason we can’t put this car back in Victory Lane.”
Another JR Motorsports teammate, Justin Allgaier, comes to Las Vegas ranked third in the driver standings, a mere three-points behind Allmendinger. He also is looking for his first victory at Vegas but has three runner-up finishes – the most recent coming in this race, last March.
Reigning series champion Hemric will also be trying to earn his first victory of the season. Now driving for Kaulig Motorsports, he is Allmendinger’s new teammate. Although he’s led the most laps of 2022 and earned two stage wins, Hemric is still looking for his first top 10 of the year. He’s ranked ninth in the standings.
Austin Hill, a perennial title contender in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series, scored his first Xfinity Series win in the Daytona opener as he contends for the title for Richard Childress Racing. He’s ranked 11th heading into Vegas, where he won back-to-back Truck Series races in 2019-2020.
TIL NEXT TIME, I AM STILL WORKING ON MY REDNECK!
