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A.J. Allmendinger wins caution-filled NASCAR Cup race at The Brickyard [VIDEO]

It took three restarts to finish it, and a surprise winner emerged in A.J. Allmendinger.

AJ Allmendinger, driver of the Hyperice Chevrolet, drives during qualifying for the NASCAR Cup Series Verizon 200 at the Brickyard at Indianapolis Motor Speedway on August 15, 2021 in Indianapolis, Indiana. Photo by Stacy Revere/Getty Images

In a terrible race for fans due to poor track design, the Verizon 200 at the Brickyard turned into far-too-long finish which saw an unexpected winner in A.J. Allmendinger. Allmendinger was a +2000 underdog to win the race at DraftKings Sportsbook.

The scheduled 82-lap race turned into a 95-lap marathon thanks to the multitude of restarts. The green flag dropped just after 1 p.m., and it was well after 5 p.m. when it was finally over.

On a green-white-checker restart after a long delay for track repair, Denny Hamlin was the first to Turn 1 on the road course, but a crash forced the caution to come out once again. Michael McDowell went airborne in eighth, and took out a good portion of the field behind him.

On the second green-white-checker, Chase Briscoe was in second and ended up in the grass after the first turn, and was assessed a stop-and-go penalty. But before he did that, he spun out Denny Hamlin and it appeared to be intentional.

The setup between Turns 5 and 6 was pretty bad, and it caused most of the issues late in the race. It’s something we’ll likely see fixed from Nascar before they return to the infield in Indianapolis.

  1. A.J. Allmendinger
  2. Ryan Blaney
  3. Kyle Larson
  4. Chase Elliott
  5. Matt DiBenedetto
  6. Kurt Busch
  7. Erik Jones
  8. Justin Haley
  9. Austin Cindric
  10. Ryan Newman