Saturday’s NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series (NOAPS) race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway was one both Brandon Jones and Justin Allgaier would like to forget.
They crashed out of the race after tangling at the start of Stage 2, and Jones was later disqualified due to having four or more loose lug nuts on his No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota.
Allgaier, the reigning NOAPS champion, entered this race just 11pts out of the championship lead. Jones missed the Chase, but was still racing for a win, and trying to shake off the misfortune of the past few weeks.
At the end of Stage 1, Jones won the race off pit road with a blistering fast pit stop. It turns out, it was a bit too fast, as the team was unsure if they managed to get the left-front tight.
It turns out that they did not. Jones immediately lose ground on the restart, struggling to control his race car as the wheel was clearly loose. He lost control underneath Jesse Love, and then over-corrected up into the outside wall. Unfortunately, that put him directly into the path of Allgaier, destroying both cars.
Allgaier later briefly returned to the race, running two slow laps to overtake Jones. Unofficially, they finished 34th and 35th, respectively.
However, due to the loose lug nuts, that was an automatic disqualification for Jones, dropping him behind Dawson Cram and into 36th (last) place.
“Yeah, I mean it boiled down to the pit stop and not getting them tight,” said Jones after he was released from the infield care center. “I mean, I thought they did a great job. They got me out front. That’s what we needed to do. We needed to be able to control this race and they were probably pushing as hard as they could, but it’s all about no mistakes right now and unfortunately, we continue to figure out and find ways to make mistakes every single race so far.
“I was just trying to stay out of people’s doors. I mean, when the left front or right front’s loose like that the car just will not turn. It doesn’t like it at all. So I couldn’t feel it before I went green but as soon as I got into the corner just instant 9/10 vibration. What are they going to do behind me? They’re all just in a bad spot with that situation. It boils down to better execution. I’m frustrated right now with my guys. I just I know in my heart that they’re better than this and we continue race after race to come here and we make these mistakes.”
Slight change to the standings
That also slightly altered the championship picture due to the stage points he collected as the fourth-place finisher in Stage 1. After removing him from the stages as well, here’s how the championship picture changed:
Carson Kvapil is still 19 points behind Sheldon Creed for the lead, but Jesse Love in third gained a point back to be -21pts, and so did Justin Allgaier in fourth as he is now -30pts.
Carson Kvapil 19 points back, Jesse Love 22 points behind, Justin Allgaier now 31 points behind after a wreck. They are followed by Corey Day who was not impacted by the DQ, and the Las Vegas race winner is 41pts out of the lead.
Allgaier spoke on his early exit outside the infield care center, saying it was “pretty frustrating” to start his title defense like this after dominating the regular season.
Watch: Day on final lap battle: ‘I wasn’t lifting, that’s for sure’
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