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Tuesday, December 23, 2014

2014 Driver Spotlight Review: Justin Allgaier

Justin Allgaier 2014 Review


By Richard Tix

Season Grade: B-

2014 was Justin Allgaier's first full time season on the Cup level. He ran four races in 2013 to get his feet wet and finished in the top 25 once. But the real focus is what he did in his rookie season, 2014. Justin didn't notch any top 10's in his first year running the #51, but he did manage to lead 16 laps.

Justin finished the season with a total of 10 top 20's which was a good number to hit in his first year with a small one car team. Add to that he had 16 top 25's and he had a pretty steady rookie year (all in 35 races). If it wasn't for a huge rookie class lead by Kyle Larson and Austin Dillon , Allgaier would have received a bit more attention in 2014.

Year two will be a big stepping stone for the young Cup driver and will show how his future may go. Its always hard to evaluate young drivers that get a ride with a small underfunded team because you don't get to see them in the best equipment. If we only think about the kind of ride he was in Justin had a solid rookie year. The brightest part about his season was that he ended it with 5 top 20's in the last 8 races (1 of those a top 15). In that time many Chase drivers were pushing it as hard as they could to get to the next round, so those top 20's will be an impressive stat when looking into his early 2015 season.

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