Berry bests Allgaier and the field in Alsco Uniforms 300 at Charlotte
CONCORD, N.C. — It was a JR Motorsports showdown in the closing stage of the Alsco Uniforms 300 at Charlotte Motor Speedway on Saturday (May 28th 2022). When the dust settled, Josh Berry went on to claim his second victory of the 2022 NASCAR Xfinity Series season.
The final 81 laps of the 200 lap event went green to the finish, and for most of those laps, Berry battled against his teammate Justin Allgaier for Charlotte supremacy. As both drivers weaved through lapped traffic, they were able to pull away from the rest of the pack significantly.
After the final green flag stops, Allgaier used the undercut to take the lead. Berry stayed close and battled back. The two traded blows, but eventually Berry took the point. A flat tire took Allgaier out of the equation as Berry went on to win by more than 18 seconds over Ty Gibbs, who wound up second.
The day belonged to the Mooresville-based organization, as all four JR Motorsports drivers led 190 of the 200 scheduled laps. Not only did Berry win and lead 89 laps on his own, but he also scored the Stage 1 victory, which at the time was the ninth straight stage win for the company.
Sam Mayer took the field to the green after collecting his first career pole award yesterday. Mayer led only the first two laps but ran in the Top 5 for the majority of the day, finishing third.
For a time, Noah Gragson looked to be the man to beat. A sour engine (that still managed a fourth place at the end of the day) put him behind for the rest of the day. Still, Gragson led twice for 36 laps and had an incredible recovery with an engine that sounded like it should have quit about halfway through the race.
The other side of the battle for the lead, Allgaier led 63 laps and won the second stage, which makes ten straight stage wins for JR Motorsports.
A stage break pit stop miscue put him behind to start the final stage, but he fought back to follow Berry away from the field. The late flat tire forced him to finish seventh at the end.
The only non-JR Motorsports driver to lead was Ryan Preece, driving a Stewart-Haas Racing-prepared Ford Mustang for B.J. McLeod Motorsports. Preece, who nearly won the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race on Friday night, led the 10 laps they didn’t and ended up in fifth.
The runner-up at Charlotte was Gibbs, who had a relatively quiet race after starting in the rear following a late incident on Friday. Gibbs never led and was never really in the conversation for the win, but made the most out of his day and stayed out of trouble. Gibbs still leads the series with three victories on the year.
“We were just a little slower than those guys and I was too tight center,” Gibbs said. “Our guys worked really hard overnight to get this thing ready so I’m very thankful to my guys. Just need to be able to rotate the center of the corner, that’s where we were lacking the most and that’s where we got beat.”
Leaving Charlotte, AJ Allmendinger maintains as the points leader by 33 points over Gragson and 40 over Gibbs, despite a season-worst finish of 19th at the end of the day. Allmendinger was one of many drivers to suffer from a tire failure through the race.
Half of the six natural cautions on the day were tire related, with Brandon Brown, Riley Herbst and Austin Dillon all having failures that were caution-worthy. There were eight cautions in total for 44 laps, including the two for the stage breaks.
Surprisingly, the win on Saturday was the first ever for JR Motorsports at Charlotte Motor Speedway. With the way the race unfolded, one would think that they’ve had this place figured out for years.
The next race on the season will bring the NASCAR Xfinity Series to the inaugural Portland Grand Prix next week. It’s the second road race on the season, the first of which, at Circuit of the Americas, was won by Allmendinger.
ALSCO UNIFORMS 300 TOP 10 RESULTS
- #8 Josh Berry – JR Motorsports
- #54 Ty Gibbs – Joe Gibbs Racing
- #1 Sam Mayer – JR Motorsports
- #9 Noah Gragson – JR Motorsports
- #5 Ryan Preece – B.J. McLeod Motorsports
- #11 Daniel Hemric – Kaulig Racing
- #7 Justin Allgaier – JR Motorsports
- #2 Sheldon Creed – Richard Childress Racing
- #18 Trevor Bayne – Joe Gibbs Racing
- #31 Myatt Snider – Jordan Anderson Racing
Featured Photo by Kyle Stephens / The Racing Experts LLC.
