Justin Allgaier wins Darlington O’Reilly race as bad pit stop derails Larson

While Kyle Larson dominated most of the race, it was Justin Allgaier who won Saturday’s NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series race. It was his second win of the 2026 season and the 30th of his career.

“All of these guys right here,” said Allgaier, gesturing his team when he asked how he pulled off this latest victory.  “We have not been the best on pit road all year, but these guys have never quit. They have gone to work and never given up, and they were on top of it all day on pit road. Huge thank you to these guys and Andrew Overstreet (crew chief), and this entire #7 team … We definitely weren’t the all day. Kyle was obviously amazing, he had us covered. Andrew told me on that last restart to ‘never give up, if we can get the lead we got clean air and we’re going to win this thing,’ and we did.”

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Brandon Jones finished second, Christopher Bell third, Larson fourth, and Carson Kvapil fifth. Corey Day, Sheldon Creed, Parker Retzlaff, Sammy Smith, and Sam Mayer filled out the remainder of the top ten.

Larson had won both stages, and led 107 of 147 laps before a slow pit stop denied him a shot at the win.

Stages 1 and 2

Larson led the race from pole position, and A. Hill found the wall early. He later had to make an unscheduled pit stop due to a flat tire.

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Larson dominated the entire stage, winning Stage 1 ahead of Bell, Kvapil, B. Jones, Allgaier, Retzlaff, Love, Sawalich, Alfredo, and Chastain.

During the stage break, both Jeremy Clements and Kyle Sieg had an issue and needed to be pushed into their stall.

Trying to get into his stall, Love got hit from behind and spun out on pit road, sending him to the back in a rocky start for Richard Childress Racing.

The stage that followed was much like the opening run of the race, with Larson dominating. He won Stage 2, over five seconds clear of Kvapil, B. Jones, Allgaier, Retzlaff, Chastain, Alfredo, Day, Bell, Sawalich.

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Stage 3

During pit stops, Chastain got bumped from behind by Alfredo and spun into his box, much like Love earlier in the race. However, he also hit one of his own tire, resulting in an end-of-line penalty.

B. Jones actually won the race off pit road, and restarted with the lead. Larson gave up the front row, restarting directly behind Jones and putting Allgaier on the front row. The former series champion made the most of that, surging ahead and taking control of the race.

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He then had to fight off a hard-charging Larson in the final 50 laps of the race. With 33 laps to go, Larson cut under Allgaier and took the lead back.

The first natural caution of the race was with 25 laps to go, as Kyle Sieg and Austin Hill crashed on the backstretch. Alex Labbe and Lavar Scott then got tangled together while trying to avoid, crashing as well. Making matters worse, Labbe then actually got hit by his own jack while walking around the damaged car back in the pits.

Justin Allgaier, No. 7 JR Motorsports Chevrolet

The entire field pitted for fresh tires, and Larson had a slow stop, dropping down to fifth as Jones reclaimed the lead, once again thanks to his pit crew.

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But once again, Allgaier made the outside work on the restart, powering into the lead through Turns 1 and 2 and never looking back.

Darlington NASCAR O’Reilly Results

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