When it was finally time for the pay window to open in Saturday’s NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series BetRivers 200 at Dover Motor Speedway, Corey Day found his groove (literally).
Day, a pupil of Hendrick Motorsports and two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion Kyle Larson, used his dirt racing experience to search around the one-mile concrete racetrack and find the fastest line possible, which, as the laps wound down, inched closer and closer to the outside wall.
Working from a gap of two-plus seconds, Day reeled in race-leader Justin Allgaier with five laps remaining, and with four to go, split the lapped car of Blake Lothian, to get the lead around the outside of the 2024 NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series champion.
The Clovis, California-native, who had a visually out-of-control racecar all afternoon, could run the top with the best of the drivers in the field, but struggled when his car had to run around the bottom. In the final green-flag run, though, which lasted about 35 laps, the track came to the No. 17.
It’s the second NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series victory for Day, the first of which came at Talladega Superspeedway earlier this year. The triumph also puts the Hendrick Motorsports team back on track after two tough weeks at Texas and Watkins Glen.
“I was hoping that’s how it would have played out, I saved so hard early in that last run once we put on tires and the yellow came out and I was like, this thing is going to be a caution-fest, and it was all for nothing,” Day told Heather DeBeaux post-race. “Oh man, it just worked out good. So, thank you, Mr. Hendrick, thank you, Jeff Andrews, Jeff Gordon. This one feels really good, the Talladega one was unexpected and a superspeedway and whatever, but we earned that one.”
Justin Allgaier still came home in the runner-up position, less than half a second behind race-winner Corey Day. Allgaier struggled throughout the early portion of the afternoon, and after a loose wheel in Stage 3, crew chief Andrew Overstreet brought him down pit road for his final set of tires early, giving him track position — which was almost enough to snag a victory.
However, the lapped car of Lothian was the difference maker, he felt, between winning and finishing second. So, post-race, the Riverton, Illinois-native spoke to the Joey Gase Motorsports driver.
“It’s a good teaching moment,” Allgaier told The CW. “Blake [Lothian] and I have spoke a couple of times, obviously super talented, just he kind of made a move to go inside and then back outside, and I just didn’t know what lane he was going to go in, and unfortunately I let the No. 17 get to the outside.”
Lothian was still on the lead-lap at the time of the incident, and finished 26th-place in the No. 55 Toyota GR Supra for Joey Gase Motorsports, a career-best.
Sam Mayer finished in the third position, after looking like, for a little while in the penultimate run of the race, that he would be able to challenge Allgaier. William Sawalich spent some laps out in front, too, but ultimately finished in fourth.
Austin Hill, who ran outside the top-10 for a lot of the afternoon, rounded out the top-five in fifth. For the Richard Childress Racing driver, it’s his first top-five result since Circuit of The Americas (COTA), the third race of 2026.
Outside polesitter Brandon Jones also looked like a contender for the victory on Saturday, but a slow first pit stop really took the No. 20 Menards Toyota out of contention for the victory. Carson Kvapil finished seventh, with Ryan Sieg, Sammy Smith, and Anthony Alfredo rounding out the top-10.
Alfredo rebounded from an incident with Blaine Perkins around Lap 60, where he sustained some damage to his No. 96 DUDE Wipes Chevrolet. As it turns out, crew chief Joshua Graham used an alternate strategy at the end of the race to get the Viking Motorsports driver into the top-10.
Austin Green finished a solid 12th for Peterson Racing Group, after his crew chief left him on track during a rash of yellows in the middle of Stage 3, leaving Green to come down pit road for fresh tires with 35 to go.
Green grabbed the spot after a slow last-lap for JR Motorsports teammates Ross Chastain and Rajah Caruth, who both had strong front-running days going before incidents throughout the event.
Caruth was looking to have a career day in the No. 88 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet, restarting on the front row in the final stage, but got loose underneath defending NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series champion Jesse Love, sending them both up the racetrack and the No. 2 into the outside wall.
The very next caution involved Caruth, as well, after Sammy Smith dove three wide into Turn 3 and caused the No. 88 to miss his line, sliding into Harrison Burton as both drivers slid up the racetrack and spun around.
As for Chastain, the NASCAR Cup Series regular paced the field for 68 laps after winning the pole, but had his day negatively impacted while battling for a spot in the top-five with Taylor Gray, which saw the two make contact and the fifth JR Motorsports entry pancake the outside wall. Gray spun to the inside of the racetrack and had his top-five day ruined, as well.
Leaving Dover, Justin Allgaier continues to lead the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series point standings by a whopping 175 points over Sheldon Creed. Jesse Love, Corey Day, and Brandon Jones are the top-five in points heading to Charlotte Motor Speedway next weekend.
