Spencer Gallagher scored his first career NASCAR Xfinity Series win in Saturday’s Sparks Energy 300 at Talladega Superspeedway.
Gallagher led the last lap – his only career lap led – in overtime Saturday to take his first win in 49 career starts. He is the ninth different winner this season. Gallagher is the 12th different driver to win in the last 12 races in the NXS, the record for most consecutive races without a repeat winner is 13 races.
“Awe, man, the only thing going through my mind was, ‘I hope to hell this works.’ I’m so happy right now,” Gallagher said. . “GMS Racing brought me such an incredible car here. To qualify and run in the race like we did, I knew we had some speed.
“Man, it didn’t seem real for a while. That whole last lap, it was kind of a dream. You hear your spotter in the background but all you’re really doing is looking out your mirror. It’s always wild on the last-lap at Talladega, but we brought it home, baby, we got it done!”
Brandon Jones, Justin Allgaier, Noah Gragson and Elliott Sadler rounded out the top five.
Sadler’s fifth-place finish secured him the $100,000 Dash 4 Cash bonus. He had to rally from being penalized a lap for speeding when he came down pit road trying to avoid the spinning car of John Hunter Nemechek.
“Boy that was crazy,” Sadler said. “We avoided a wreck, got penalized which I don’t agree with but came back to get this bonus for a second straight week. Great day for this JR Motorsports team overall.”
Allgaier and Austin Cindric both ran out of gas before the start of overtime. Allgaier came back for his sixth straight top-10 finish at Talladaga.
“Went from hero to zero, right? We were in position to get the Dash 4 Cash and maybe a win regardless of what happened to the 7 (Allgaier),” Cindric said. “But hey, we were in contention.”
Ryan Sieg, John Hunter Nemechek, Tyler Reddick, Cole Custer and Garrett Smithley completed the first 10 finishers.
Daniel Hemric and Sadler won the first two stages.
The NASCAR Xfinity Series now heads to Dover International Speedway next Saturday afternoon where Gallagher, Jones, Allgaier and Sadler will be eligible for the Dash 4 Cash prize.
