The traditional 20th wedding anniversary gift is china. But Ashley Allgaier probably doesn’t mind an auto-racing trophy instead.Her husband, Justin Allgaier, won the Saturday night NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series GOVX 200 at Phoenix Raceway and gave her and their two daughters, Harper and Willow, recognition afterward.“It was my 20th wedding anniversary this week, so got to give a shout-out to my wife for putting up with me for 20 years,” he said. “My wife and kids are not here, so I’m sad for that.”But Allgaier definitely was happy after winning at the Avondale, Arizona, mile oval for the third time and breaking into the win column for the first time this season. And he expressed his love for the series and his colleagues, as well as new series sponsor O’Reilly, after giving JR Motorsports its 107th victory.“O’Reilly Auto Parts first year for them. It was cool to get the win. For me, my first one with them, and they’ve come in and supported this great series and there’s nothing cooler than this series. I love the drivers. I love the teams. That’s what makes these wins that much more special,” Allgaier said.“It really, truly is special. So proud of it,” he said, alluding to how the team rebounded from a particularly sub-par pit stop.“That first pit stop, we had an issue, and this team rallied behind it and they never gave up. I mean, we lost out on this race last year on a late race restart. And we were able to get this one this time and we went on to win Vegas. So I have no doubt that we’ll have a really fast Chevrolet next week.”The series moves this coming weekend to 1.5-mile Las Vegas Motor Speedway, where Allgaier won in the spring race a year ago and returns as the points leader after four of 24 events.“We got a lot of momentum and this next part of the summer is really fun for us,” he said.So Allgaier was full of love Saturday night. But he had his hands full with Jesse Love.Love and Allgaier - the past two series champions, both of whom regard Phoenix Raceway as one of their favorite venues—waged a battle to the end. Love had set the pace for 114 of the 200 laps. But Allgaier moved around him on the outside between Turns 3 and 4 with 11 laps to go and never relinquished the lead.That decisive pass followed the final restart with 15 laps remaining. And Allgaier held off a disappointed Love, who was runner-up by .449 of a second, and third-place Carson Kvapil.Jesse Love.“Great battle there with Jesse,” Allgaier, now a 29-time winner, said. “I just knew we had to go on that last restart and we did that. So never gets old winning, especially first win for me here in the Riley Auto Parts series with the new name.“And to beat the group of drivers that I did today really is awesome. It's really special. And it doesn't matter how many wins you get, how long it's been in between. Everyone's like a first one again. So I'm really proud of that,” he said, his No. 7 JR Motorsports Chevrolet helping the automaker sweep the first 14 places. He thanked “everyone at JR Motorsports, the men and women that work on these race cars every week. It's unreal how great of an organization we have right now. Just so proud of what we've accomplished.”Allgaier won at Phoenix for the first time in nine years, for the first time since 2019. He also won here in 2017. He has driven the No. 7 car for 11 seasons, and he is in his 16th year of competing at this tier of NASCAR.Love, driver of the No. 2 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet, said, “I think the only real misstep we really had was just tightening up there, beginning of Stage 3 and kind of put us behind. And I don’t know what his tire life was like. But yeah, just frustrated.”His competitive nature came out at the suggestion he could walk away from his performance with his head high.“Yeah, if I show up to run second and just collect points. But obviously, not why I’m here,” Love said. “And yeah, just beyond frustrated with myself and yeah, I’m upset. I’m just upset with myself.”All but two of the 32 cars still were running at the end of the two-hour, seven-minute race that saw 20 lead changes and four cautions for 37 laps. One of those two drivers was William Sawalich, who got the worst end of a four-car smash-up with 27 laps left that involved four Joe Gibbs Racing teammates. They included polesitter Taylor Gray, along with Blaine Perkins and Brandon Jones.
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