MARTINSVILLE, Va. — The message to Sammy Smith from the No. 8 JR Motorsports radio was delivered loud and clear. That over-the-air signal was a reminder of the fray that exploded on the last lap during the NASCAR Xfinity Series’ most recent trip to Martinsville Speedway, a fracas that he was in the middle of, again with rival Taylor Gray in front of him.
“We’ll go kick his ass the right way this time,” the No. 8 radio crackled.
Those kicking plans unraveled on a notably civil last lap of Saturday night’s Round of 8 finale in the Xfinity Series Playoffs, and so did Smith’s hopes of reaching the Championship 4 grid and a title shot in next Saturday’s season-ending race at Phoenix Raceway. Gray scooted away to his first victory in the series, but Smith followed through on the “right way” part of the scenario, taking a clean runner-up finish instead of an overly aggressive bump-and-run tactic that could have propelled him to the win and a Champ 4 berth.
“I wasn’t close enough to move him the right way,” Smith said post-race, “and if I move him like I did this spring, I’m going to get blackballed and get thrown out of the playoffs anyway, so I’m probably parked. Obviously, I didn’t want to do it that way anyway, and he was the better car today.”
Moving on instead to the championship race were Richard Childress Racing’s Jesse Love and JR Motorsports’ Carson Kvapil, two drivers who advanced on the basis of points after rocky evenings on the track. They’ll vie for the Xfinity Series crown with JRM’s Connor Zilisch, this year’s top rookie, and Justin Allgaier, the defending series champion.
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Joining Smith on the wrong side of the elimination line were Joe Gibbs Racing’s Brandon Jones, who ended up four points behind Kvapil as the first driver out, and Haas Factory Team stablemates Sam Mayer and Sheldon Creed further back.
For Gray, the win was a measure of redemption for a pair of recent hard-knock losses at the 0.526-mile Martinsville track. Gray missed out on the Championship 4 in the Craftsman Truck Series after a run-in with Christian Eckes here last fall, then was slammed by Smith in the final lap in the springtime Xfinity show — both incidents that sparked heated post-race confrontations.
Gray said he was cognizant of their dust-up last March as the laps ticked down, and told reporters that the two had talked in the months since. “I’m not cool with him, though, if that’s what you’re asking, no,” Gray said. “And I think he knew better. I think he knew that he was gonna get himself in a fight if he wrecked me. So yeah, I think he probably played this one out a little smarter in his head than last time.”
Love and Kvapil were left with some sense of relief after both reached the Championship 4 field for the first time. Love entered the race with a comfortable 40-point advantage in the playoff standings, but two key pit-stop miscues and a resulting 23rd-place finish cost him a significant chunk of his cushion.
Love sped in the final section of pit road during his first stop of the race, knocking him to 30th in the running order early on. A Stage 2 pit stop brought more heartache when an errant tire rolled into the pit box behind Love’s, drawing an equipment interference penalty and dropping him to 36th in the 38-car field. “We’re not going to let it get us down here,” No. 2 crew chief Danny Stockman told his team over the radio after the second infraction. “We’ve got to (expletive) clean it up — everybody.”
Though he fell a lap down at one point, Love held on and advanced by an 18-point margin.
“It’s a relief, but not to say you ever take it for granted, but I expected coming in here to be moving on to Phoenix,” Love said, “and didn’t expect for it to be as blue collar of a night as it was, but I know that we’ll be good at Phoenix. I know it’s my best race track. I know this place is my worst race track, and I never like coming here, so I’m glad I can say sayonara until March next year.”
Kvapil recovered from a spinout on the 227th of 253 laps that threatened to upend his playoff course. Andrew Overstreet, crew chief for Kvapil’s No. 1 Chevrolet, opted to keep his driver on the track during a cycle of pit stops after a Lap 92 caution. That move helped Kvapil inherit the lead and hang on for a Stage 2 win and bank 10 crucial points in the standings to help his cause.
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Kvapil was 13 points up as the final stage ticked down, but his spin in close-quarters racing with Ryan Sieg and pole-starter Harrison Burton left him in 30th place and staring down a sudden seven-point deficit. From there, the short-track ace rallied with some encouragement over the No. 1 team radio: “You’re faster than all these cars. Take no prisoners.”
Some 20 laps later, Kvapil had made up 12 spots to secure an 18th-place finish, advancing by a slim four-point margin and becoming the third JRM driver with a title shot next weekend.
“We positioned ourselves pretty well into Stage 3 before we got turned there,” Kvapil said, “and we kind of were in the situation where we just needed to just finish where we were and just not make any enemies and just try to ride it out. I think we were ahead of (Love) at the time. I think he got his lap back, and we were gonna have to go forward, but we were in a way better spot than we were at the end. Just once we got put back to 30th, it was, man, you’ve just got to hammer it. I mean, you hate to do it, right? You hate to go in there and just hammer people out of the way. But I mean, with less than 20 to go, you’ve just got to do what you’ve got to do, right? And I know our car has the speed to do it.”
On the other side of the four-point difference was Jones, who netted 11 points in the stages but wound up two positions short of a Champ 4-clinching victory.
“Struggled with the car a little bit throughout the race as well,” Jones said. “I mean, I don’t think by far we were anywhere capable of driving, taking the lead, going to win the race by just straight-up, real battle. We were good enough to go and be competitive to maybe take advantage of somebody’s mistakes, but I don’t know. All in all, we still have a little bit of work to clean up here. We’ve got some things that we can continue to make better, in my opinion. So I’m happy for Taylor. I’m happy to for him to get his first win. He’s been working hard at it. I know he has. So if somebody is going to win it, I guess let’s let one of those guys get it. So dejected we’re not going to go run for the championship, but proud of all the things that we’ve done this year and we built.”
The Xfinity Series finale is set for next Saturday (7:30 p.m. ET, The CW, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).