A.J. Allmendinger beat Sam Mayer to the finish line by .015 seconds to win Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway in a photo finish and claim his first career NASCAR win on a superspeedway.
Allmendinger was third entering the tr-oval coming to the checkered flag. With a push from teammate Landon Cassill, Allmendinger took a “hard right” and squeezed his No. 16 Chevrolet between the cars of race leader Mayer and the No. 39 of Ryan Sieg and edged ahead of Mayer right before crossing the finish line.
As Allmendinger’s fourth win of the season, it’s his first on an oval.
“We won one, let’s goooo!” Allmendinger screamed over his team’s radio during the cool-down lap.
The Kaulig Racing driver only led three of 113 laps in an uncharacteristically calm superspeedway race. There were no multi-car wrecks and the only non-stage caution was for a single car accident within the first five laps of the event.
“Still hate it,” Allmendinger said of sueprspeedway racing with a laugh after exiting his car. “But oh gosh, we’ve been so close to anyone and I feel like I keep giving them away and I might have given it away. I’m still learning trying to know what too big of a lead is. But honestly all credit to Landon Cassill. He kept shoving me. He stuck with me. That’s what’s great about Kaulig Racing and when you got teammates like Landon, Daniel (Hemric), that you know no matter where you go, they’re gonna go with you. Makes a little bit easier.”
After watching an abundance of recent race at Talladega, Allmendinger observed that “it just seems like the guy in third, if you lay back enough here you have a run. And we got just enough gap. I don’t even know if I was clear in front of Sieg, I just made it hard right to try to win this race. We got it.”
 For Mayer, who earned his best-career finish, he was three feet away from his first NASCAR Xfinity Series win.
The JR Motorsports driver has 11 career top fives in 46 starts.
“I mean, this is my first time really getting to the end of the speedway race coming to the checkered and it was a good first experience, I guess,” Mayer told NBC Sports on pit road. “I mean, take a top five at a place like this any day. Going into the day we were just like get some stage points and hopefully survived for the end. But I mean, obviously we survived at the end and we did everything right.”
Click here for the NASCAR Xfinity at Talladega race results.
NASCAR Xfinity point standings after Talladega
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Completing the top five was Cassill, Sieg and Berry.
For Sieg, it is his 16th career top-five finish, but only his second of the season.
The top 10 was rounded out by Parker Kligerman, Ty Gibbs, Hemric, Noah Gragson and Riley Herbst.
Pole-sitter Austin Hill, who swept the first two stages and led 61 laps, lost the lead with five laps to go when he drove Gragson all the way to the outside wall in an attempt to block his attempt at the lead. The Richard Childress Racing driver wound up in 13th.
#NASCAR … Today's Xfinity race was the 1,300th in series history.
— Dustin Long (@dustinlong) October 1, 2022
This was just the 3rd time the ENTIRE field was running at the finish.
Others were Michigan (Aug 1998) and Langley (April 1988)
The only caution of the afternoon for cause came on Lap 3. It was a single-car incident, caused when a Justin Allgaier push exiting Turn 2 went bad, causing Gibbs to lose control and bounce off the outside wall. Gibbs was able to continue after repairs.
After the ensuing restart, Allgaier would take the lead from Hill. Allgaier would be shuffled back in the pack on Lap 14 as Hill and Anthony Alfredo raced for the lead. By Lap 17, most of the field was single file along the outside wall.
The single file racing disappeared with three laps left in the first stage, and when the green and white checkered flag waved, Hill won over Sheldon Creed, Hemric, Brandon Jones and Trevor Bayne. Hill would win the race off pit road over Bayne, Creed, Josh Williams (no tires) and Jones.
Bayne would assume the lead on the restart to begin Stage 2. Hill would race back to the lead with six laps to go in the stage.
Hill would come close to losing the lead to Allgaier in Turns 3 and 4 on the final lap, but he held on to take the stage win over Allgaier, Allmendinger, Bayne and Jeb Burton.
Bayne was first off pit road under the caution.
The restart with 60 laps to go in the race saw Gragson take the lead for the first time, only for Jone to claim it a couple of laps later.
Sieg, a playoff driver, emerged from the field to take the lead on Lap 58. But Allmendinger quickly took over the point position.
With 44 laps to go in the race, the Chevrolet teams all pit together. During the drive down pit road, Myatt Snider was spun from contact with Blaine Perkins and had his pit stop conducted backwards.
We've got a lot happening here! #Sparks300 pic.twitter.com/rgkxdiMuLx
— NASCAR Xfinity (@NASCAR_Xfinity) October 1, 2022
Hill would cycle back to the lead with 33 laps to go as he led a large single-file line.
That single line would stay intact until six laps to go in the race.
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