Corey Day Surpasses Justin Allgaier Late to Win a Chaotic Race at Dover

Corey Day and the No.17 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports stole the lead late in the BetRivers 200 at Dover Motor Speedway to capture their second win of the 2026 NASCAR O’Reilly’s Auto Parts Series season.

“I saved so hard in that last run there,” Day said, postrace. “It just worked out good, we earned that one.”

The event began with outside pole sitter and driver of the No. 9 JR Motorsports Chevy Ross Chastain leading the first 12 laps before trouble struck early with the No. 19 of Brent Crews sliding up into the wall of Turn 2, causing an accordion effect behind with the No. 27 of Jeb Burton and the No. 99 of Parker Retzlaff also involved.

Stage one mellowed after the first yellow flag, this time with Crews’ teammate, the No. 20 of Brandon Jones, capturing the stage victory. The second stage began under more calmly, with the only incident coming on Lap 61 from Blaine Perkins in the No. 31 Chevy. Chastain soared back out front to win Stage 2 over his teammate, the No. 88 of Rajah Caruth.

The third and final stage was nothing short of chaotic, with the following restart seeing both Caruth and the No. 2 of Jesse Love making contact in Turn 3 and sending both cars up the track. It wasn’t the first time these two young drivers have had an on-track conflict.

A trend of battling hard for the lead and causing a spin recurred during the run to the checkered flag. Points lead and driver of the No. 7 Justin Allgaier took advantage of track position as much as possible, leading 37 of the final 40 laps of the race with Day running faster lap times each cycle.

The move for the win came with four laps to go, with Day using the lapped No. 55 of Blake Lothian as a pick and clearing on the back straightaway. It proved to be a frustrating way to end the day for Allgaier. “It’s a good teaching moment,” he said. “He kind of made a move to go inside, then back outside, I didn’t know what lane he was going to go into.”

Race Results