Allgaier captured his first win of the season at the NAPA Auto Parts 200 presented by Dodge on Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal, emerging in front after a frenzied overtime finish.

“Today was just an awesome day,” said Allgaier. “Winning in Montreal means so much because all the people in the series enjoy coming here. The atmosphere is great, the fans never disappoint here but the race played out perfectly for us.”

Allgaier was running third at the second attempt for a green-white-checkered finish when a last-lap bump put him in front of Penske Racing teammates Sam Hornish Jr. and Jacques Villeneuve, who ended up second and third.

“I knew I was closing in on Jacques but he braked really early into corner 6 and I was certain he had ran out of gas,” added Allgaier. “He went really slow and I had too much of a head of steam and was sorry I got into him.”

Hornish, who made one last charge at Allgaier on the final lap, seemed far from happy with his second-place finish.

“I should feel pretty content with finishing second but I feel that Penske Racing deserved more from this day, considering the two cars
that they provided us,” said Hornish after the race. “I was running confident, second to Jacques, and felt that we would be battling the
win out between the two of us but the 30 (Alex Tagliani) stuck his nose in there on a restart with about 10 laps to go and I was sent
back to 23rd place or so. I should be happy to finish second after restarting from 23rd but we deserved better. ”

The seven extra laps ran because of the two green-white-checkered finish attempts, which forced Villeneuve to eke out the last drops of Sunoco gasoline from his fuel cell. However, though his Dodge Challenger ran out of fuel before getting back to the garage on the cool-down lap, the Quebec-born driver says that he saved enough to get him easily to the checkered flag.

“I did not run out of fuel and my engine did not sputter,” said Villeneuve. “I was simply taken out by Allgaier, who used me to slow
down in Turn 6 on the last lap. It’s frustrating because Penske and Dodge gave me such a good car. We ran head and shoulders above
everyone else even if we were not attacking in order to save fuel and brakes for the end of the race. It’s hard to take.”

Allgaier was apologetic . . . but not too much.

“I am really sorry that I took him out but from what I’ve heard, because I couldn’t see it, earlier in the day, that same car spun out
the 30 car (driven by Tagliani) that just happened to be our teammate,” Allgaier said. “So I guess that what goes around comes around.”

NASCAR Nationwide Series points leader Elliott Sadler finished fourth, one position in front of 2008 Montreal winner Ron Fellows.
Michael McDowell, Mike Wallace, Billy Johnson, Austin Dillon and NASCAR Sprint Cup series regular Kyle Busch completed the top 10.

With 824 points, Sadler extended his lead at the top of the NASCAR Nationwide Series championship race to 22 points over Ricky Stenhouse Jr., who wrecked late but still finished 12th. With his second-place finish, Hornish is now tied with Stenhouse with 802 points while Austin Dillon (789) and Allaier (756) close out the top 5 in points.

Danica Patrick had a good day, leading 20 laps but mechanical issues on her GoDaddy Chevrolet relegated her to the 27th position,
six laps behind the leaders.

“How disappointing is it. We’re bound to catch some good luck some time. I just can’t believe the amount of bad luck we’ve had, ” said
Patrick, who even hit a shoe thrown on the track by a fan at one point.

Derek White, a regular in the NASCAR Canadian Tire series, was the best finishing Quebec driver apart from Villeneuve with an 18th-place effort.

Montreal-born Tagliani, who started from the pole position, led seven laps and ran up front most of the day but was moved over by
Villeneuve for the lead on lap 67. Tagliani finished 22nd.

Patrick Carpentier (29th), Andrew Ranger (32nd), Dexter Stacey (35th) and Louis-Philippe Dumoulin (38th) were the other Canadian drivers entered in the event.

Earlier in the day, Tagliani finished 7th and 8th while running in two different cars in the GRAND-AM Rolex Sports Car Series race won by Scott Pruett and Memo Rojas.

Grabbing the lead from Brad Keselowski after a restart with 10 laps left in Saturday’s Zippo 200 at The Glen, Edwards held on to win his first Nationwide Series start of the season.

Edwards took the top spot from Keselowski on lap 73 of 82, completing a pass to the outside as the cars approached the esses at the 2.45-mile road course. Keselowski regained the lead momentarily on Lap 76 but lost it again to Edwards’ crossover move as the cars approached Turn 1 to start Lap 77.

That’s when a caution for Austin Dillon’s blown tire slowed the field and set up a restart with two laps left. After a side-by-side battle in Turn 7 on Lap 81, Edwards held off Keselowski to win by 1.130 seconds.

“I hate to admit it, but I missed a downshift in Turn 6,” Edwards said of the sequence of events that allowed Keselowski to pull up beside him as the cars approached the white flag. “All day, that was where he was beating me, so I went in there extra hard, and I missed my downshift and he got next to me.”

Keselowski, however, ran out of room to the outside, and Edwards pulled away to his 38th Nationwide victory, breaking a tie for third with Kevin Harvick on the series’ all-time win list.

“Obviously, he missed that last left-hander [Turn 6],” Keselowski said. “I pulled up beside his left-side door and went into [Turn 7] on Carl’s outside, and he got loose and came up the track and hit me and put me in the wall there.

“That kind of took away all my momentum. I didn’t have a chance at it from there.”

Pole-sitter Sam Hornish Jr. ran third, followed by Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and road course ace Ron Fellows.

Entering the race with high expectations after her strong run at Road America in June, Danica Patrick suffered terminal damage to her No. 7 Chevrolet before the race was a lap old.

Ryan Truex’s No. 20 Toyota slid through the grass in the first corner and back onto the pavement right in front of Patrick’s car. The collision broke Patrick’s radiator and ultimately put her out of the race in 43rd place, the worst finish of her NASCAR career.

“One thing leads to the next in these situations, and the radiator was leaking,” Patrick said. “I noticed on my lap [after attempted repairs on pit road] that it took a long, long time to get to fourth gear on the backstraight. It might have been losing power at that point in time. When they got the radiator changed — and they did it really quickly — I went to fire it, and there was water coming out of the tail pipe. It wouldn’t turn over.

“I feel so bad. I wish it would have gone differently but that’s the sport. There’s a lot of stuff that is out of your control and there’s a lot of stuff you look back at that you would’ve, could’ve, should’ve done differently — but that’s just racing.”

Scott Graves, Edwards’ crew chief, is batting 1.000, too, with a win in his first Nationwide Series race.

Elliott Sadler finished 12th and saw his lead in the series standings shrink to 13 points over Stenhouse, 24 over Hornish and 29 over Dillon, who finished 23rd and lost two positions in the points.

A regular in the NASCAR Camping World Truck series, Piquet Jr. used his first career pole and laps led to earn his very first NASCAR national series win on the Wisconsin road course. In his third career NASCAR Nationwide start, the native of Brazil drove a flawless final 17 laps with the lead, earning a 2.258-second victory over runner-up Michael McDowell. He led a race-high 19 laps and also becomes the first Brazilian to win a NASCAR national series race.

“It’s difficult to put into words what I’m feeling,” Piquet Jr. said. “I think we had a great week since the first practice. I learned the track quite quickly and the team helped me out quite a bit.”

Piquet didn’t fight too hard for the lead until after the halfway mark, but that was a strategic move in order to save fuel in case there was a green-white-checkered finish like last year where the 4.048-mile course caused mayhem on pit crews trying to have enough fuel to finish the race.

“I could have fought harder in the middle of the race but there was no reason why,” Piquet said. “I wasn’t going to accomplish anything. I just held back a little bit and when it was the right moment I attacked. It was on one of the restarts where I passed Jacques [Villeneuve] and moved quick through the field and led the race at the end.”

McDowell and Ron Fellows finished where they started, at second and third respectively. Max Papis and Sam Hornish Jr. rounded out the top five.

“We had a really good car,” McDowell said. “The problem was I used up my car a little too much to get into second and then on that final restart I tried to be a little smart and anticipate Nelson trying to go a little early and tuck in behind him but Danica [Patrick] was right there. I kind of knew if I gave up a little bit to be at the bottom it would be worth it, but I just never got to the bottom. I tried to run down Nelson but his car was fast. I don’t know if we would have had anything for him if we would have stayed with him on that restart. I think he was saving a little bit on fuel, because when he needed to go it seemed like he could.”

The Sargento 200 had a tamer finish than last year, which had three green-white-checker finishes. Things did get a little interesting when one of the big names from last year, Villeneuve, made contact with Danica Patrick in Turn 5 on the final lap, which spun Patrick, dropping her from fourth to 12th, her eventual finish.

Villeneuve finished sixth, followed by Brian Scott, Kurt Bush, Cole Whitt and Justin Allgaier.

Patrick had a near-flawless day up until her greeting with Villeneueve on the last lap. Villeneueve said after the race though that he was not trying to wreck Patrick at all.

“We were racing hard and I wasn’t fighting with Danica,” Villeneuve said. “I was fighting with Max Papis and just before the braking, I guess he was wanting to cross over and go to the inside of Danica. He probably didn’t know I was there, so it pushed me in the grass. You don’t slowdown that much in the grass, so by that time I was on the racetrack again, I was going a little bit faster than Danica. That’s all.”

The race started with Piquet leading, but that didn’t last long as McDowell took the lead on Lap 3. Busch, who had to start 34th after having unapproved adjustments made to his car, made his way all the way up to 17th. McDowell and Piquet Jr. would end up pitting on Lap 6 for fuel, allowing Fellows to grab the lead.

With Fellows starting to pull away from the pack, a punctured tire slowed down all of Fellows’ momentum, causing him to enter the pits on Lap 9. Brian Scott was the beneficiary of that, allowing him to take the lead. Patrick, who started 10th, would make her way up to second place by Lap 11 and stay in the top five for most of the race.

T.J. Bell had a problem in Turn 14 on Lap 13, leading to the first caution of the day. Many of the drivers made their way to the pits, with Allgaier having to spend some extra time there while his pit crew had to help remove a water bottle that had fallen underneath his gas pedal.

With the caution lasting multiple laps, Scott was one of the last drivers to pit, surrendering his lead to McDowell. Papis would end up taking the lead from McDowell on Turn 3 of Lap 16. It wouldn’t be long until the next caution, however, as loose debris would cause another yellow flag.

After that caution, Miguel Paludo was the new leader, with Patrick running in second place. Patrick would make her move on Paludo on Turn 3 of Lap 21 to take the lead, but a little slide by Patrick in Turn 5 would give the lead right back to Paludo.

Another caution would take place when Kenny Habul went into the tire wall at Turn 5. Villeneuve was in the lead at the time. With the leaders pitting, Papis would be hit with a stop and go penalty and would have to return to the pits. Hornish Jr., who like many was trying to manage fuel, took the lead in Lap 33.

Turn 5 had some more action a little after that when Villeneuve was bumped in the back by McDowell. Villeneuve would drop from the top five all the way down to 22nd. Another caution involving Bell would slow everything down again. The leaders would pit again, hoping to make it the rest of the way with the fuel they had. This time Piquet Jr. would take the lead for the final time.

Allgaier would have an issue with his front left tire and wound up in the gravel on Turn 5 on Lap 37, hitting Busch on his way there. Points leader Elliot Sadler would get spun on Lap 39 and finished in 15th place. The series’ top rookie Austin Dillon remained second in the points with an 18th place finish. Dillon, who is 11 points behind Sadler, had issues with his car, which kept him out of contention.

Ricky Stenhouse Jr., who has been in the middle of a major slump, finished 11th and remains third in points, 23 behind Sadler. Hornish Jr. and Whitt round out the top 5 in the standings, with Patrick holding firm in the 10th spot.

Fellows won at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal driving for JRM in 2008.

Fellows will also drive the No. 36 Golden Corral Chevy for Tommy Baldwin Racing in the Heluva Good! Sour Cream Dips at the Glen Sprint Cup Series race at Watkins Glen. Dave Blaney, the No. 36′s regular driver, will drive the No. 35 at the Glen.

Fellows drove for TBR last year at the Glen. He finished 40th after a suspension problem.

Fellows said:

I am excited to pick up where we left off last year. … It is always great to be a part of the Sprint Cup race at Watkins Glen. We had a decent qualifying run last year at the Glen, but then didn’t finish the race after we were running inside the top-15. Although it is a year later, we are just looking to build on that.

TBR owner Tommy Baldwin added:

We had pretty good success last year until we were wrecked halfway through the race. We want to finish what we started last year. It’s always good to have a road course ringer, and Ron is the best of them. Dave has done a great job for us this season, so we are excited to field the 35 car for him as well.

The scheduled 50-lap race on Road America’s 4.048-mile road course needed three green-white-checkered-flag attempts to determine a winner, and even on Lap 57, it was difficult to see that Reed Sorenson had won his first race since 2007.

For most of the afternoon, the race was relatively clean. Then came the final laps, and Road America morphed into something resembling a demolition derby, forcing the maximum overtime attempts allowed to determine the winner.

The race ended under caution, which was fitting considering all the pushing, grinding and shoving that sent countless cars into the road course’s expansive gravel traps.

It also ended under a cloud of uncertainty—and drama.

Justin Allgaier took the white flag and had the lead when the seventh and final caution was thrown because Aric Almirola’s No. 88 Chevrolet had stopped on the track in Turn 5. But Allgaier ran out of gas in Turn 6, and it wasn’t immediately clear whether Sorenson or Ron Fellows had inherited the lead—even though Sorenson was running second behind Allgaier and Fellows third.

Before declaring the winner, NASCAR officials took an extra look at the video feeds. They determined that Fellows had moved ahead of Sorenson after the yellow had been thrown, thus giving the win to Sorenson.

“This is not the place I thought I’d win a race,” Sorenson said. “I’d never been here before.”

The restarts produced by the green-white-checkers contributed to the late race mayhem, Sorenson said.

“It’s easy for the guys to get bundled up and have wrecks,” he said. “We were able to capitalize on that. When the last caution came out, Justin was first, and we were second. We were able to break away and stay in second place. Justin ran out of gas in Turn 6, and we were able to make it around and even have some gas left for some doughnuts.”

Fellows, who was scored second, was disappointed with his result.

“We got ourselves in a little bit of trouble, anyway,” he said. “For whatever reason, on the restarts toward the end, I just couldn’t get any forward traction.”

Jacques Villeneuve, who had an eventful afternoon, Elliott Sadler and Mike Wallace rounded out the top five.

Villeneuve was apologetic for a Turn 1 incident on the first GWC attempt. The incident put Max Papis and Brian Scott out of the race. On the restart, Villeneuve attempted to move to the inside of Scott only to run out of pavement where the Road America’s pit lane blends with the front straight. Villeneuve drifted back and bumped into the right rear fender of Scott, which sent Scott into Papis and both into the gravel on the outside of Turn 1.

“When I put two wheels on the grass, I really didn’t want to be there,” Villeneuve said.

The win pushed Sorenson up two spots and into first in the standings by five points over Sadler. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. finished eighth and dropped from first to third. Allgaier finished 19th and remained fourth in the standings but is now 34 points behind the leader.

Another caution for a wreck set up a three-lap run to the finish. Ron Fellows took third from Brendan Gaughan. Villeneuve attempted to chase down Edwards. But, Villeneuve had body damage and a tire rub. He began to slip back with a mechanical issue. He finished 25th.

Top 5: Edwards, Fellows, Brendan Gaughan, Brad Keselowski and Owen Kelly.

Brad Coleman, JR Fitzpatrick, Jason Leffler, Steve Wallace, and Trevor Bayne rounded out the top 10.

Notables: Colin Braun (11th), Ron Hornaday (12th), Tayler Malsam (15th), Paul Menard (16th), Kenny Wallace (21st), Jacques Villeneuve (25th), Ricky Stenhouse (26th), and Justin Allgaier (35th).

An eleven-car pileup brought out the red flag on lap 29. The wreck started when Brian Scott got turned in the corner. It looked like Brendan Gaughan got into the back of him. Some cars slowed to avoid hitting him, stacking up the field.

Mike Bliss stopped to avoid hitting Michael McDowell and Alex Kennedy. Kennedy ended up in the kitty litter. Mike Wallace slowed to avoid hitting Bliss, while Tony Raines slowed to avoid hitting Wallace. Robb Brent slammed into Raines, who slammed into Wallace.

Then, Colin Braun made contact with Brent, turning him. Stanton Barrett turned to avoid them and ended up in the kitty litter. Kyle Kelley then hit Braun. The race was red-flagged for cleanup.

This year, he will pilot the No. 88 AER Manufacturing Chevy at Road America later this month, and the No. 88 Grand Touring Vodka Chevy at Watkins Glen International in August.

The No. 5 Chevy will be split among team owner Dale Earnhardt Jr, all-time series wins leader Mark Martin, Ryan Newman, Tony Stewart, and Scott Wimmer.

Jr will drive at Texas Motor Speedway in April, Talladega Superspeedway in April, Lowe’s Motor Speedway in May, Daytona International Speedway in July and Atlanta Motor Speedway in Sept. in Chevys that will be sponsored by Fastenal, Godaddy.com, and Unilever.

Martin will drive the Chevy at Richmond International Raceway in May with Lipton as a sponsor. Tony Stewart will drive at Lowe’s Motor Speedway in Oct. with Delphi as a sponsor. Stewart already has one victory in the series this season, winning the Camping World 300 at Daytona in a Hendrick Motorsports Chevy.

Newman will drive the No. 5 Fastenal Chevy in four races: Dover International Speedway in May, Chicagoland Speedway in July, Michigan International Speedway in Aug., and Kansas Speedway in Oct.

Wimmer will also pilot the No. 5 Fastenal Chevy for six races: Darlington Raceway in May, The Milwaukee Mile in June, O’Reilly Raceway Park in July, Iowa Speedway in Aug., Bristol Motor Speedway in Aug., and Richmond International Raceway in Sept.

Wimmer said in a JR Motorsports press release:

I am really excited to be associated with JR Motorsports and a great sponsor like Fastenal. I will be running at tracks that have been good for me in the past and look forward to my first event with JR Motorsports at Darlington in May. Hopefully, we can get the Fastenal car in the Winners Circle.

The announcement leaves two races without a named driver — the road-course events at Watkins Glen and Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, both in Aug. Drivers for those races will be announced at a later date. Last season, Ron Fellows drove the No. 5 GoDaddy.com Chevy to victory in the NAPA Auto Parts 200 presented by Dodge at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, so he may be considered for that race.

Earnhardt Jr. drove at Watkins Glen last year, presumably to get more experience at road courses, so he may take one of those races.

Also, anytime you mention road courses, you have to mention Boris Said’s name. He could also be considered.

Earnhardt Jr said:

This No. 5 team carries a strong tradition and a lot of expectations, and we are fortunate to attract such quality talent to help carry on that tradition. We had a similar set-up with this team last year, and we were able to go to Victory Lane twice. Obviously with this driver line-up, there’s no reason we can’t exceed last year’s win total.