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DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Ryan Truex scored his second victory of the season when the caution came out on the last lap of overtime in Friday night’s race at Daytona International Speedway.
Truex was leading when the caution came out for contact between AJ Allmendinger and Parker Kligerman that sent Allmendinger sliding to the bottom of Turn 1 before coming back up the track and hitting the wall.
MORE: Daytona Xfinity results
MORE: Xfinity points after Daytona
“I go left and he tries to go with me,” Kligerman told NBC Sports’ Kim Coon about the contact with Allmendinger. “I hate it. AJ and I, we were awesome. We were the best two that weren’t Toyotas all day. I just had a run, and I had to go. I felt like it was a run I had to take to try to put myself on the bottom to win this race.”
Chandler Smith finished second. Kligerman was third, Riley Herbst placed fourth and Ryan Sieg completed the top five.
Truex said he didn’t have a plan in the final laps.
“I couldn’t figure out if I wanted the top or the bottom,” he said. “I restarted on both lanes and felt like neither of them were great, but I fell back in 2018 – I had the lead, and I took the top and I lost the race and I didn’t want to do that again, so I figured I would try the opposite of that and go to the bottom. Riley (Herbst) gave me a crazy push, so shout out to him. He didn’t wreck me – just straight up pushed me.
“Once the restart shook out, I was just listening to Tyler (Green, spotter) telling me where to block. AJ (Allmendinger) – I knew he had a run coming to the white. I knew he was going to go for it going into (Turn) 1 and I got lucky, and all of those guys hit each other, and the caution came out. Here we are.”
The race had five multi-car accidents, including a pair of nine-car wrecks and a six-car crash.
The start of the race was mired by a Lap 1 crash. Jeremy Clements spun and cars behind crashed while slowing. Among the cars damaged was Austin Hill’s car.
Hill, who has won the past three February Daytona Xfinity races, was scheduled to start Friday’s race on the front row but the team had to replace a steering pump and steering box before the race and had to start at the rear for the unapproved adjustments.
After clearing the damaged vehicle policy, he went to the garage for repairs and returned several laps down. Hill finished 31st.
Stage 1 winner: Justin Allgaier
Stage 2 winner: Justin Allgaier
Who had a good race: Ryan Truex won his second race of the year while making only his eighth start of the season. … Ryan Sieg collected his second top-five finish of the season with his fifth-place result. … Justin Allgaier finished seventh but won both stages. He’s won 13 stages this season.
Who had a bad race: Ryan Ellis, Akinori Ogata and Gus Dean were all eliminated in a crash on the opening lap.
Next: The series races on Saturday, Aug. 31 at Darlington Raceway (3:30 p.m. ET on USA Network).
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