CONCORD, N.C. — With a third-place finish and a blessing in disguise, Sammy Smith advanced to the Round of 8 in the NASCAR Xfinity Series Playoffs by one point over Taylor Gray following Saturday’s race at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval.
A deteriorating right-front tire brought Smith to pit road with just three laps remaining in regulation. As Smith was receiving service on pit road, the yellow flag waved for a Sage Karam crash on the frontstretch. That caution allowed Smith to rejoin the field and stay out when others pitted, taking the green flag eighth in overtime and charging to a third-place finish when the caution flag waved again for debris on the final lap.
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After a brief delay to sort the standings, Smith was confirmed to have beaten Gray by a singular point, propelling all four JR Motorsports cars into the semifinal round of the postseason and ousting the driver of the No. 54 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota.
“Probably gonna go home and cry myself to sleep,” Gray said with a slight laugh. “It is what it is.”
Ultimately, Smith joins Connor Zilisch, Justin Allgaier, Brandon Jones, Sam Mayer, Jesse Love, Carson Kvapil and Sheldon Creed in the Round of 8. Eliminated from title contention with Gray were Nick Sanchez (minus-9), Austin Hill (minus-21) and Harrison Burton (minus-41).
The right-front tire on the No. 8 JR Motorsports Chevrolet was blistering as Smith ran ninth, but the call from crew chief Phillip Bell to pit wasn’t totally out of left field. Running six points beneath the cutline, Smith said Bell had planned for an all-or-nothing call if the situation necessitated it. On Saturday, it all came to fruition to push the No. 8 Chevy through.
“It was a long shot coming into the day,” Smith said of entering 14 points below the cutline. “We got lucky with that Hail Mary move Phillip called. Amazing call by him to do that. And just relieved because I felt like we are a Championship 4 caliber team, and unfortunately, what happened at Bristol took us out of it. So, yeah, we’re just gonna regroup and just try to do everything we can to go make the final four.”
Officials reviewed the last-lap footage for roughly 15 minutes to confirm the results, with the field frozen at the time of caution after a Turn 7 crash between Brennan Poole and Alex Labbe left fluid at the exit of the hairpin. The wait was excruciating, but for Smith, worth every second amid a whirlwind of ups and downs.
“It was from 10 to go thinking we’re not really going to make it in because we didn’t really have the speed to drive up,” Smith said, “and it didn’t look like (Gray) was going to lose enough positions. And, yeah, Phil made a great call to pit, and then obviously I had to make a lot of aggressive moves there. And luckily, we were able to make it in. So, yeah, just relieved and ready to move on to the next round.”
On the other hand, the wait was a gut-punch to Gray that was met with heartbreak after falling short with a 13th-place finish. The difference? Just two positions.
“It sucks, right?” Gray said. “I mean, we weren’t good enough today. We just we weren’t a playoff-caliber car and so we got knocked out.”
MORE: Gray: ‘Just weren’t good enough’
Gray’s crew chief, Jason Ratcliff, granted his rookie driver grace despite falling short of the Round of 8.
“The pressure of the playoffs, everyone says, well, it’s not much. It’s a lot,” Ratcliff said, “especially for a guy in his first season in the series and going to a lot of tracks he’s never seen like this one. We knew this one would be tough. …
“I don’t know what he could have done any different, as far as being a rookie in the sport, in the playoffs in a tight points battle like that, at a difficult track like this. I thought he did really a fabulous job. He showed a lot of poise, and, yeah, it’s disappointing he didn’t make it to the next round, but it’ll it’ll be beneficial for him going forward.”
Hill failed to advance to the Round of 8 by 21 points, the same amount of playoff points Hill earned through the regular season until he was suspended for an incident at Indianapolis Motor Speedway that wiped those 21 playoff points off his slate. Hindered by a sickened engine in the latter stages of Saturday’s race, the No. 21 Richard Childress Racing driver didn’t attribute his postseason ousting to that regular-season penalty.
“I don’t really look at the points thing that happened with us losing the points,” Hill said. “Yeah, obviously that played a factor tonight, but I just viewed it as we didn’t have any points going in the to the playoffs. That was something that I didn’t agree with, but it happened, right? So I put that behind me. And Bristol just was not good. We ran outside the top 15 all day. That got us really behind. Had a really good Kansas, but just wasn’t good enough.”
The Round of 8 will begin at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Saturday, Oct. 11 (7:30 p.m. ET, The CW, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
