2 weeks Ago By JON JOHNSON [email protected]
Two months have now passed, but as Abbeville native and Auburn University graduate Adam Richardson reminisces about standing in Victory Lane as the team’s lead engineer after NASCAR driver Justin Allgaier won the Xfinity Series season championship at Phoenix Raceway, the memories come racing back quicker than a restart. “To finally come through and to get that championship for Justin ..
. to get that championship for the organization ..
. to me was just a huge sense of relief immediately when we crossed the checkered flag because we had been conditioned to expect the worst,” Richardson said. It was the first season championship for the veteran Allgaier, a 38-year-old who had 25 Xfinity race wins under his belt during his career and had finished runner-up in 2023.
Richardson, who developed a love for racing as a teen after attending a race at the Atlanta Motor Speedway, began his NASCAR career with Roush Fenway Racing in 2013 with a role of performing analysis on cars, using knowledge gained from working at manufacturing plants for Honda and Mercedes-Benz. He advanced to an engineering role with Roush Fenway Racing before working the 2022 season with Carson Hocevar in the Craftsman Truck Series. After learning of some openings at JR Motorsports before the 2023 season, Richardson applied and was hired by the company co-owned by Dale Earnhardt, Jr.
, but had no idea what his role would be until entering the shop for the first time. “When I walked in the door, I really wasn’t sure what my role was going to be just yet,” Richardson said. “I was introduced to everyone and I was informed I was going to be Justin Allgaier’s lead engineer.
” His duties include performing data analysis while researching every minor detail of the race car and the race track the driver may be competing on. “It was exciting,” Richardson said of his hiring. “Just like Carson, he’s a very talented driver; a very genuine person.
I knew his reputation. He’s an annual contender for the championship, so it was exciting to be paired up with him and have the opportunity. “At the same time, I felt a lot of pressure that we needed to deliver his first championship to him, right?” Allgaier was one of four drivers who qualified through the playoffs to be in position to challenge for the 2024 Xfinity Series championship, which is a step below NASCAR’s Cup Series.
“I could probably fill a book with all the experiences to this entire season,” Richardson said. “I don’t think the headlines do justice to all the things we had to do to win a championship, and everything Justin had to overcome to win. “It really goes back to 2023.
That was our first year together and Justin, as usual, is always expected to win the championship. We finished second in the championship to Cole Custer. “We knew going into 2024 we were going to improve on that.
The first Phoenix (regular-season race) of 2024, we brought the same car; the same set-up ...
we really didn’t change anything. We ran in the top five all day. “He (Allgaier) took the lead late in the race.
We had four laps to go and we blew a left rear tire and crashed out. Obviously at that point, it’s demoralizing, but you know you had a really good car and we can work on that and be ready for the championship race. “Really all year we had a lot of high highs and a lot of low lows.
We had to learn to fight through the obstacles. “Getting to the playoffs was tough. We had accumulated a lot of points through advancement through most of the rounds.
We knew if we got to Phoenix, we would be really formidable.” The odds of Allgaier winning the title became extremely low only a few laps into the practice session the day before the Xfinity Series finale on a Saturday night in Arizona this past November. “We got to Phoenix and unloaded the primary (car),” Richardson said.
“We had improved upon the car from the spring ...
we had put our best ideas together and learned throughout the year. It was a culmination of our best ideas – our best setups – it was the best that we could put into that car. “We practiced and I think lap 2 1⁄2 I hear Justin on the radio say, ‘I’m so sorry.
Someone just blew up and wrecked us all.’ I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. We brought the car in and it was destroyed – the whole right side.
“Again, it’s another obstacle we have to overcome. Fortunately, our organization is so deep in talent and experienced people. NASCAR allows the championship four drivers to have a fully prepared backup car.
As soon as we determined our primary was wrecked and we couldn’t fix it, the entire organization and the team went to work to unload the back-up car.” While wrecking in practice was devastating, the fact it came early in the session was a blessing. “That was really important to get at least one lap on the backup car in practice to feel it out and address some issues,” Richardson said.
“Had we not got that car on track, it could have been a problem in the race. “It was a bad thing that the primary was wrecked, but it was good that it happened in about two laps to give us enough time to get the back-up car on out. Before he crashed, he put up the second fastest lap time and that stood throughout the entire practice.
So that primary was the best car we were going to build all year and it was our best ideas. “We had improved on it since 2023. We had been building to this point and the car was killed.
It was demoralizing, but fortunately we had been conditioned to deal with these scenarios and we all knew what to do. “We pushed the frustration aside and got to work and got the backup out there ..
. made a couple of laps ..
. and that gave us enough data to go back to the rental house that night and review all the information and data so we could put our best piece forward for the race. We knew that backup car was built just as good as the car in the spring.
” Because Allgaier was using a back-up car, he had to start in the back of the pack on championship night. “We started in the back and Justin being Justin, methodically made his way into the top 10,” Richardson said. “He got to battling with the 98 car Riley Herbst and rubbed the left rear tire.
Justin felt like it was going down, and all the data we could see showed the tire was going down. “We had a caution shortly after we had the contact, so we were able to pit and take the left side tires off. You have a limited set of tires for the whole race, so we can keep putting four fresh tires on it, so we just put left side tires on it and let him go back out there to work.
” As it turns out, the left rear tire wasn’t actually going flat. “It was still holding air,” Richardson said. “Again, we have to battle from behind.
We drive back up into contention and then to start stage three, we have a restart penalty. As we did the pass-through penalty (on pit road), we sped in the section we were pitted in. So, we have to do another pass-through penalty for speeding and now we’re a lap down.
“So, it was restart violation, then pass-through penalty, then speeding penalty, then pass-through. After those two incidents we’re a lap down in the closing stage of the race.” Still, Richardson and the crew were confident their driver would have more chances.
“I wasn’t too worried about it because we know statistics say it’s a greater than 60 percent probability that a caution will come out somewhere near the green flag pit cycle, when everybody else needs to pit for fuel and tires,” Richardson said. “At that point, we can stay out and get back on the lead lap and hope a caution comes out. While these penalties were tough to swallow, we still knew we could pull it off.
” “Fortunately, halfway through the stage when everybody was making their green flag stops, we get back on the lead lap and a caution comes out and that’s helpful for us, because everybody else has already pitted,” Richardson said. “They’re usually not going to pit again after they have just pitted and lose their track position. After we make our pit stop, we come back out and are outside of the top 10 – maybe 12 or 13th – but we have six to eight lap fresher tires than the guys in front of us.
So now you have a little bit of an advantage on the guys in front of us. “We go back green and Justin is in there digging and catches Cole Custer, who he needed to pass to be in contention for the championship ..
. he catches him and passes him ..
. and then we have a late race caution. “Here’s our late green-white checkered restart.
We come back down and everybody is going to put on their last set of tires. But if you recall, from early in the race we had to give up a set ..
. the set that we had the flat on. “But the left rear we thought was flat was perfectly fine, so we put those left side tires back on the car.
So, we had fresh right-side tires and scuffed left side tires from the set that we thought were flat but turned out to be fine. We were going to finish the race on that set of tires.” “Justin knows what he has to do,” Richardson said.
“On the restart, the 21 (Austin Hill) drove in there really deep and kind of lost the car a little bit and as he’s washing up, he bottles up 00 (Custer). When Justin sees this happening, he just shoots to the bottom and passes both of them. “Now he’s in the lead for the championship.
Then we have another caution ...
this is the final caution. At this point, we’re ahead of the 21 and the 00. In racing, you can build the fastest car, have the best team and the best driver, but in the end, scenarios have to work out in your favor.
“Even though we crashed the primary, thought we had a flat left rear and we had to serve two penalties, at the end of stage three, these scenarios worked out in our favor with the caution coming out in the middle of a green flag pit cycle and then with our competitors racing each other gave Justin the opening to get around them. Once he got around them, the car really took off.” “There was another restart there at the end,” Richardson said.
“Coming to the white flag, Riley (Herbst) was closing in on him ...
the 98 car (Herbst) is really on his bumper on the last lap. “Knowing he had such a buffer from the other three championship cars (Hill, Custer and AJ Allmendinger), he just kind of lets the 98 go and have his way, because in the big scope of things, the championship was what we were after.” In finishing second in the race behind Herbst, who wasn’t among the championship contenders, the Xfinity Series title belonged to Allgaier.
“That race really summed up our entire season,” Richardson said. “Just battling through adversity and working together to overcome the hurdles and giving our driver the best chance we can to win the championship.” “Through some persuasion, my wife was able to get out on the track with us,” Richardson said.
“So, all of our families were out on the track celebrating on the start-finish line. “They have a stage set up where we do all the photos with all the hats and they hand out the championship champaign bottles and do the interviews. “After we wrapped up the pictures, I walked with my wife (Angie) and son (Riley) back around the track.
We (crew) had stayed in a rental house altogether and all went back to the house. It was just a sense of relief and a sense of accomplishment that we had done it. It really was like a dream .
.. did this really happen? “Then we all watched the race.
I think we all went to bed about 3 o’clock in the morning. In the moment, you can’t comprehend the big picture. You’re just trying to put fires out and address the situation, so we were able to sit down and watch the full race and kind of understand how things happened.
” Before heading back to their home in Concord, N.C., Richardson and his family had a mini-vacation.
“Me, Angie and Riley loaded up and went to Disneyland,” Richardson said of the following day. “We had planned that the whole time. We knew Disneyland was either going to be doom and gloom or we were going to enjoy it.
“So, Sunday morning we got up and drove to Disneyland and spent three days there. It was a great way to cap off the entire season and have some special experiences we can look back on.” Get local news delivered to your inbox!.
