Parker Kligerman thought that he had the restart of his life. With 7 laps remaining, Saturday’s Andy’s Frozen Custard 300 went green for the final time. Kligerman got a great launch and had race leader, Justin Allgaier, in his grasps. With a good run off the exit of Turn 2, Kligerman used the draft to duck inside going into the third corner for the lead.

“I could see that one, I could feel it. That was the best restart I’ve ever had in my life, put us in perfect position and had the tire advantage, just choked,” he admitted.

John Hunter Nemechek and Kligerman were able to take new tires on their last stop during a caution with 20 laps remaining while Allgaier’s tires had 11 laps on them at that point and stayed out – in the lead – during that final caution.

Kligerman and Nemechek made their way back toward Allgaier quickly on their fresh tires with Kligerman pulling forward to try and make the winning move in the final 10 laps.

Unfortunately, Kligerman lost it underneath Allgaier in Turn 3 and ran both he and Allgaier up the track allowing Nemechek to sneak by and win.

“Had a great run, got to him [Allgaier] and I don’t know how much we got squeezed or didn’t. I thought I could clear him super easily, but I got super loose,’’ he said. “Feels like I got choked, he says he gave a lot of room. I’ll have to look at it.’

“I’m really disappointed right now.”

For his part, Allgaier was equally as disappointed and frustrated. He approached Kligerman on pit road after the race to discuss the close racing and fallout from it. He had battled from the back after being squeezed out of the lead pack earlier in the race by Chandler Smith which forced him to take his last set of fresh tires earlier than his competitors.

“At that point, obviously we had a really fast Camaro all day,’’ said Allgaier, who already advanced to the next Playoff round by winning the Playoff opener at Bristol, Tenn. last week.

“We put ourselves in good position. That last caution kind of hurt us because we didn’t have tires, but still thought we’d do a good job.

“Parker, when I went and I talked to him, said I squeezed him. I felt like I left him plenty of room there knowing he’d go to the bottom and he drove it in super, super deep into [turn] three. And he’s been around the sport long enough to know what’s going to happen. Just disappointed. Not only did it mess up battling for second it put us way up in the marbles.”

Allgaier has finished 5th, 16th, 1st, 7th, 18th, 1st, 5th in the last 7 weeks. He’s also led 243 laps in two playoff races thus far as well with stage finishes being 2nd, 1st, 1st, 1st.

Over his last 10 races, Kligerman has finished 9th, 2nd, 8th, 7th, 3rd, 4th, 24th, 3rd, 31st, 2nd and gained 21 points on the day moving him from -22 to -1 heading to the Charlotte ROVAL elimination race in two weeks.