It’s not officially official yet, but all signs point towards Justin Allgaier returning to JR Motorsports for the 2027 NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts season.
This is newsworthy because the 2024 champion, and arguably the face of this division over the last decade, had been contemplating retirement as of his 40th birthday last month. However, this is also the most competitive season of his career, with six victories, 16 top 10s and 13 top 5s in 21 starts.
How do you walk away from the peak of your competitive career?
“I mean, I had a pretty good thought of that being direction we were going to go but there is still some things we have to work through to finalize that before I would say that it’s officially official,” said Allgaier during a press conference on Friday at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
JR Motorsports co-owner, Kelley Earnhardt-Miller, told SiriusXM NASCAR Radio last week that her group was able to convince Allgaier to stick around for a little while longer
“I’m so glad that we talked him into coming back for a couple more years and not retiring yet,” Earnhardt-Miller said. “We might have him sticking around … I think you can count on him being with us and seeing him here at JR Motorsports in the future, for sure.”
For Allgaier, that meant checking with everyone around him both personally and professionally to ascertain if this is really what everyone wats.
“I think for me, just kind of entrusting some of the groups around me, just conversation with my wife, probably most importantly, and my kids, but just trying to discuss what that looked like and even then partners, right,” Allgaier said. “Making sure that we were able to put funding together to be able to put a race car on the racetrack.
“So like I said, there’s still a few things that have to be kind of finalized before we can say, ‘Hey, yes, this is official (and) we’re back,’ but I think for me, it was more about just kind of entrusting the group around me and seeing what they thought and what they felt.”
Allgaier said ‘a lot of folks in (his) inner circle’ said he needed to keep going with such a prominent team around him in the No. 7 car.
“Obviously, having success on the racetrack this year plays a huge role in that,” Allgaier said. “When you’re running good and you’re enjoying what you’re doing, it’s easier to stick around.
“But at the same time, there’s a lot of things that I think are going on outside of the four walls of the racetrack that a lot of folks don’t necessarily know. It doesn’t really matter to the outside world the things that I’m going through but at the same time, I think that making sure that I’m making the right decisions for all the parties that I have to make sure that I’m taking care of is the most important. So, while I’m here, I want to be good and useful. I don’t want to just be here and just to show up every week.”
Right now, Allgaier is the championship favorite approaching the Chase for the Championship over a group that also includes defending champion Jesse Love of Richard Childress Racing, Sheldon Creed of Haas Factory Team and Corey Day of Hendrick Motorsports.
He’s already clinched the top seed and is simply building momentum towards the final nine races that come after the points reset.
“I think for me particularly, I think momentum is great,” Allgaier said. “So you never want to have one of those off weeks. I do think that when I look at the schedule, I think that I’m really excited about the racetracks we have coming up over these next three weeks.
“But I’m also excited for The Chase to start. I’m excited to get there. But I think in this sport especially, it’s really easy to kind of skip the short term to look ahead to the long term. And I think sometimes you can do more of a detriment to yourself by doing that because I think you need that momentum. You need to have the races kind of go the way that you want them to go and keep working on your craft because I think it’s so easy to get behind in this sport and it’s really hard to get ahead.
So the fact that we’re doing what we need to do right now and we’re ahead is great. We just need to stay there and not fall behind before The Chase starts.”
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