“It’s completely ruined this place”: Justin Allgaier on ‘unrealistic’ reconfiguration of NASCAR’s Atlanta Motor Speedway

NASCAR’s RAPTOR King of Tough 250 started chaotically and ended chaotically on the final lap at Atlanta Motor Speedway. Saturday (March 18)’s 251-mile race saw 12 cautions for 68 laps as the drivers couldn’t handle the 1.54-mile-long track with superspeedway characteristics.

Several drivers were disappointed with how the whole weekend had gone and JR Motorsports’ Justin Allgaier was one of them. He finished P29 in his #7 Chevrolet Camaro after a wreck that started with contact from teammate Josh Berry.

During the post-race interview, speaking about his day, Justin Allgaier seemed upset about how treacherous the race was and then getting spun following Berry’s contact. He mentioned that NASCAR has ruined the track with re-configuration and is hoping for a solution as it provides a great racing experience.

Allgaier said:

“It's just not fun. This dollar racing. After the reconfiguration of the track, to me, it's completely ruined this place. I hope we can figure something out, because the fans here, this market for us, this is such a great place, and it's always been unbelievable racing."

"And, to do what we're doing right now, I think we ran, what, maybe 20 green flag laps, and before halfway. That's unrealistic for what we should be doing. And we definitely need to go back to the drawing board and figure something out before we come back here in the fall.”

It was Allgaier’s second consecutive DNF in the first five races of the NASCAR Xfinity Series season. However, he started the season on a high note with a P3, P3, and P2 finish at Daytona International Speedway, Auto Club Speedway, and Las Vegas Motor Speedway, respectively.

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Austin Hill took the checkered flag at Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Atlanta Motor Speedway

Austin Hill, the driver of #21 Chevrolet at Richard Childress Racing, grabbed his third Xfinity win of the season and fifth career victory after beating Daniel Hemric by 0.085 seconds in Atlanta. He led a race-high 103 of 163 laps and dominated the race that featured a record 12 cautions for 68 laps.

Expressing his feelings about winning the race in front of his family and home crowd, Hill said:

“It’s special, just having my while family here and growing up in Georgia, an hour down the road and growing up racing on this little ¼-mile race track,” Hill said after celebrating with his family on the frontstretch of the track. “I knew it was going to be tough today. I knew guys could get really good runs. This is so special. It was a tough one to win.”

Hill leads the NASCAR Xfinity Series points table with 248 points.