“They shouldn’t have crashed in front of me”: AJ Allmendinger responds to rivals complaining about getting unfair advantage

Kaulig Racing driver AJ Allmendinger became NASCAR's winner on Saturday as the 41-year-old managed to take a trip to Victory Lane after the Tennessee Lottery 250.

The second-tier nationwide series race at Nashville Superspeedway saw the Los Gatos, California native beat the field to the start-finish line in exciting fashion. He did so driving the #10 Chevrolet Camaro with multiple cars challenging for the lead, as well as an overtime restart.

Leading the final 20 laps of the 250-mile-long event, Allmendinge managed to drive a not so perfect car over the line as the checkered flag flew. Many drivers felt the stock car racing veteran's car getting damaged in the early slew of cautions in the first and second stage of the race helped him drive away from the field.

AJ Allmendinger elaborated on his thoughts on whether quarter panel damage made the performace of his Xfinity Series car better than others. He said in a post-race press conference:

"They shouldn't have crashed in front of me, got me in a wreck then. That's their own issue. I don't fix them (the cars), I don't do anything, I just drive them. So, if it helped, good one, we got lucky for the good guys one time."

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Cole Custer speaks on how damage to AJ Allmendinger's car helped him during the Xfinity Series race in Nashville

Cole Custer was one of the drivers who thought AJ Allmendinger's performance on Saturday was due to his car being damaged.

Custer outlined in a post-race interview on how Allmendinger could carry more speed through the turns at Nashville Superspeedway. The 25-year-old Ladera Ranch, California native, who drives the #00 Ford Mustang fielded by Stewart-Haas Racing in the Xfinity Series, said:

"I felt like we had a winning car and pretty livid with how it all just turned out, I don't really have anything good to say. There's a lot of different ways you can look at it with how the #10 car (AJ Allmendinger) with how damaged it was. He could drive into the corner two cars lengths deeper than us."

Kaulig Racing and the #10 team seemed to make the most out of a difficult situation in a caution-flag riddled race. However, it meant frustrations for Custer and the rest of the field.

With one guitar in Music City to his name already, Allmendinger will be looking forward to a similar day in the Cup Seris on Sunday.