BRISTOL, Tenn – Justin Allgaier just doesn’t know what more he can do. The JR Motorsports driver had three wins at this point of last year’s NASCAR XFINITY Series season. Furthermore, he had 10 top three finishes too. This year, he has just eight. But, he was well on his way to winning Friday night’s Food City 300 at the Bristol (Tenn) Motor Speedway until a tire going down late in the race cost him a shot at his first victory since Indianapolis last year.

His winless streak now reached 30 as Allgaier finished eighth under the lights in Thunder Valley on Friday. While it was his 14th top 10 result of 2019 including six top eight finishes in-a-row, it was one that got away from him.

“I don’t know how you process that to be honest with you,” a dejected Allgaier said following his fourth top 10 in his last five Bristol starts. “Just the story of the year. We had a great car tonight. Typical Bristol.”

Allgaier, said that entering this weekend, he didn’t think he necessarily had the car to beat. But, when most of the heavy hitters went out of the race early, it instantly moved Allgaier as the new favorite.

Cole Custer, Christopher Bell, Joey Logano and Erik Jones all crashed on Lap 36. All their chances of winning were done early on. Then, Kyle Busch’s engine let go following his stage victory in the second segment, leaving five of the favorites all out.

Allgaier, took over the lead on Lap 181 and would lead the next 109 laps. Unfortunately, with 11 laps remaining, the tire on his No. 7 Chevrolet went down and he went up the banking and into the outside SAFER barrier while leading.

It cost him a win.

“I don’t know if we could have beaten the 18 (Kyle Busch) apples-to-apples but when he fell out especially there at the end, I thought we had the best car,” Allgaier continued. “Tyler (Reddick) could make a run but I don’t know what else to do. It’s really frustrating. These guys deserve a win. The tire cut down and we move on. When you run the fence up there, I don’t know if we could have done anything different.”

One of the reasons that many are wondering caused Allgaier’s tire to go down was him going the final 125 laps on the same set of tires. See, when some of the leaders hit pit lane on Lap 223, Allgaier didn’t. He questioned the move with his crew chief but was coached that he had a fresh set of Goodyear rubber left while no one else did.

The caution would fly again on Lap 279 and there were only eight cars on the lead lap. Despite that, Allgaier’s crew chief didn’t want to give up track position. They had enough fuel to make it to the end, but why give up seven spots for fresh tires?

Did that decision cost him a tire?

“I didn’t want to be on the old tires there are the end of the restart but when we drove away I was pretty pumped,” Allgaier said. It just wasn’t meant to be.”t