The NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Playoffs Championship 4 field is set after Corey Heim took his 11th victory of the year Friday at Martinsville Speedway.
Heim, 23, won two of three races in the Round of 8, having already secured his Championship 4 bid with a win three weeks ago at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval.
Defending series champion Ty Majeski also advanced to the final round with a seventh-place finish, and ninth place was good enough for Tyler Ankrum to compete for a title next Friday night at Phoenix Raceway (7:30 p.m. ET, FS1, NRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Finishing second in an overtime attempt, Kaden Honeycutt took the fourth and final spot in the Championship 4 by winning a tiebreaker over Layne Riggs, the first driver to miss out.
“It all kind of started with that missed shift on that restart,” Riggs said. “I’m not really sure what happened. I’ve never missed a shift in a truck in my whole career. We do have some new transmissions and I guess I’m just not quite used to them yet, so I’m pretty upset about that. I think things could have been a lot different, but it all started at the Roval and getting turned around on Lap 1. We go to Talladega and having all the issues we had. I’m definitely dejected. I would have been dejected if we were even in fourth. I just don’t like it.”
Grant Enfinger, Daniel Hemric and Rajah Caruth were the other three eliminated drivers.
Caruth’s title hopes came to an end on Lap 73 when contact with Honeycutt exiting Turn 4 caused the left-rear tire to go down on his No. 71 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet. He then spun into the Turn 1 wall, ultimately ending his night with a 34th-place result.
MARTINSVILLE, Va. — While Corey Heim continued his propensity for sweeping stages and races, a missed shift Friday at Martinsville Speedway likely cost Layne Riggs a chance to race for the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series championship.
Heim won both stages in the Slim Jim 200 on the way to his 11th victory of the season, extending his own series record. The driver of the No. 11 Tricon Garage Toyota led a race-high 77 laps and beat Kaden Honeycutt to the finish line by 0.451 seconds in overtime.
The real drama in the elimination race took place immediately behind the race winner. Honeycutt finished a career-best second, the position he needed to oust Riggs from the playoffs on a tiebreaker that rewards the best finish in a given playoff round.
Riggs came home third, followed by non-playoff drivers Brent Crews and Corey LaJoie. Defending series champion Ty Majeski (seventh) and Tyler Ankrum (ninth) secured the remaining two berths in the Oct. 31 Championship 4 finale at Phoenix Raceway — by one point over Honeycutt and Riggs.
Fastest in practice, Riggs won the pole and led the first 27 laps, but after the second caution of the evening for fluid on the track, Riggs missed a shift on the ensuing Lap 29 restart and fell to sixth in the running order.
As the race neared conclusion, Honeycutt engineered a masterful restart from the fifth position on Lap 186, gained the front row when Crews chose to line up behind Heim, his teammate, for a restart on Lap 192 and held the second spot — and the one critical point he needed — through the overtime finish.
In the wild two-lap overtime, Riggs beat Crews to the start/finish line but couldn’t catch Honeycutt.
“I was dejected even when I thought we were in (the Championship 4) at first,” said Riggs, a three-time winner this year. “I just don’t like racing that way, man. I’m hearing, ‘Gotta get one (position), gotta get one,’ and everybody knows how it is.
“If I’ve got the opportunity to get in for my team, I’m going to do it, even if I don’t want to do it … It all kind of started with that missed shift on that restart. I’m not really sure what happened. I’ve never missed a shift in a truck my whole career.
“We do have some new transmissions. I guess I’m just not quite used to them yet. I’m pretty upset about that. I think things could have been a lot different.”
Honeycutt, who took over the No. 52 Toyota from injured Stewart Friesen at Richmond in August, was elated to finish on the positive side a breathtakingly close battle for the final three Championship 4 spots.
“Oh, man, we get to go next week,” said Honeycutt, who was released from his ride at Niece Motorsports after his plans to change teams surfaced. “I very easily should have been at home watching this race…
“I get to go and carry this race team (Halmar Friesen Racing) to Phoenix next week to have some fun and see if we can contend for that championship.”
Heim, who already had qualified for the championship race with a win at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval, simply wanted to maintain momentum into the final week of the season.
“I don’t want to jump to any conclusions yet,” Heim said of his title prospects. “We’ve got a big race next week…
“We wanted to capitalize on our day and make the best of it. Once we got out front, we showed that we really had something to work with here. We’ve got a big one next week to close it out. It’s going to be tough, but I’m confident we can do it.”
Two playoff contenders saw their hopes of advancing to the Championship 4 evaporate long before the race ended. On Lap 73, side-by-side contact with Honeycutt’s Toyota cut the left rear tire on Rajah Caruth’s Chevrolet.
Caruth slowed suddenly and spun in Turn 1, crashing into the outside wall with enough force to knock him out of the race. Having entered the elimination event 14 points above the cut line, Caruth was suddenly out of the running for the title.
“We were in a really good spot, but it is what it is,” said Caruth, who had finished ninth in the first stage. “We’ll keep pushing, and the sun will come up tomorrow. It sucks now, but that’s part of it.”
Daniel Hemric, who came to Martinsville realistically needing a victory to advance, sustained significant damage to both ends of his No. 19 Chevrolet when he was sandwiched on the on Lap 29 restart when Riggs missed the shift.
Hemric’s truck began overheating, and after losing two laps under repairs, he failed to score points in either of the first two stages. The beneficiary under two cautions, Hemric regained the lead lap but his winning chances — and hopes for a Championship 4 berth — were gone.
On Lap 165, Hemric took his truck to the garage, dropping out of the race in 31st place.
Also eliminated from Championship 4 eligibility was Grant Enfinger, who entered the race 40 points below the elimination line and finished 12th.
The Craftsman Truck Series will crown a 2025 champion next Friday at Phoenix Raceway (7:30 p.m. ET, FS1, NRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Note: Inspection in the Craftsman Truck Series garage concluded without issue, confirming Heim as the winner and making the Championship 4 official. No trucks will return to the NASCAR R&D Center in Concord, North Carolina, for further evaluation.
Rajah Caruth’s Championship 4 hopes came to an end after a cut left-rear tire suffered from contact with fellow playoff driver Kaden Honeycutt during Friday’s NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race at Martinsville Speedway.
Exiting Turn 4 at Lap 73, Caruth and Honeycutt made incidental contact, flattening Caruth’s left-rear tire. He went spinning into Turn 1 and into the SAFER barrier, suffering damage at both ends of his No. 71 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet.
Caruth attempted to limp away from the incident, but after consultation with safety crews on track, his night was over and his truck was towed back to the garage area.
“Just tight racing with steel bodies and stuff you can’t really rub. You’ll cut a tire,” Caruth said after being evaluated and released from the infield care center. “And as soon as it cut, it was on the rim, so I kind of was just out of control. So not anything deliberate obviously, just things happen and hate I was on the bad end of it.”
The 23-year-old from Washington, D.C. entered the Round of 8 finale second on the provisional playoff grid, 14 points above the elimination line. A Lap 29 restart in Stage 1 resulted in heavy nose damage for Caruth after front-row restarter Layne Riggs missed a shift three rows forward. The contact altered the handling of his No. 71 Chevrolet for the rest of the evening. Still, Caruth was running inside the top 10 at the time of his incident, but the crash ultimately put an end to his title chances in 2025.
“Definitely heartbroken, for sure,” Caruth said. “It’d be different if it was something that I did, if I messed up, but it was pretty much out of my control. Definitely a heartbreaker.”
Caruth made the playoffs via a win at Nashville Superspeedway in May, the second of his career in his third full-time season. He has 12 top 10s in 2025, tying last year’s clip. This week, Caruth announced his plans to compete full-time in the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series (currently the Xfinity Series) in 2026, splitting time with JR Motorsports and Jordan Anderson Racing.
Honeycutt eventually advanced to the Championship 4, earning the edge on a tiebreaker over Layne Riggs thanks to his second-place finish Friday night. But the driver of the No. 52 Halmar Friesen Racing Toyota was remorseful about his earlier contact with Caruth.
“I was pretty mad at myself, to be honest. I really hate that,” Honeycutt said. “I didn’t want any of that to happen. I know me and him came off the corner pretty close, and I really just need to look and see if he tracked out enough or if I just came up into him. So I’m definitely going to talk to him about that. I hate that it happened. He’s a good buddy. Thankfully, we were able to move past that and just execute all night and put ourselves in a spot to be tied to go on to Phoenix.”
Caruth was credited with 34th position for Friday’s 200-lapper in Virginia.
Dominance has often been the championship storyline for Team Penske during the Next Gen era, but disappointment is almost guaranteed Sunday over 500 laps at Martinsville Speedway (2 p.m. ET, NBC, Peacock, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App).
And possibly a double dose.
Call it the Penske Predicament.
The only team to have won the Cup championship since the 2022 debut of the series’ current race car could be locked out of the Championship 4 for the first time in four years. That cold reality arrives a season after the team’s dynamic duo of Joey Logano and Ryan Blaney claimed half of the championship field and finished 1-2 in the title race at Phoenix Raceway.
Their thunder has been stolen in 2025 by Joe Gibbs Racing and its enormously successful playoff push — winning five of eight races and clinching two of the four title-eligible berths with Denny Hamlin and Chase Briscoe.
On the flip side, Team Penske’s stumbles have been just as befuddling.
A trendy championship pick because of its trademark mastery in optimizing setups for the playoffs, especially on the shorter flat tracks that comprise the final two races, the patented Penske long game has come up short this season.
With the exception of New Hampshire Motor Speedway — where Blaney earned the team’s only 2025 playoff win to date and Logano led the most laps in fourth — this championship run has lacked the extra gear and efficient execution that are hallmarks of Roger Penske’s detail-oriented organizations.
Talladega Superspeedway exemplified those struggles. It’s normally a track where Penske machines are in complete control of the draft when at the front for the final 50 miles.
But with Blaney leading on a restart with 18 scheduled laps remaining, and Logano lined up behind with a squadron of Fords at the ready, the finishing kick got fumbled in a stunning fade. Neither Penske Mustang was in the top 15 at the checkered flag.
Paul Wolfe, crew chief for Logano, said the reason was as simple as the Fords losing their gains at superspeedways to the Toyotas and Chevrolets.
“It’s hard to keep those advantages for very long,” Wolfe said.
Penske has still tried to maintain its razor’s edge in Year 4 of the Next Gen.
Wolfe noted that without any recent major rules changes, the competition gap keeps thinning to where the difference between contending for wins and racing for 15th is small. Both Logano and Blaney have suffered multiple tire failures during the playoffs as the team has searched for ways to stay ahead.
“That’s just trying to find that little bit more,” Wolfe said. “That’s what we’re down to, pushing those limits without going over them, and we’ve had our struggles there a little bit here in the playoffs with that.”
Logano, who won the title in 2022 and ’24, is 38 points below the cutline. Blaney, the 2023 champion, is 47 points behind.
The No. 12 star has made the championship race the past two seasons with consecutive wins in the Round of 8 finale at Martinsville, but a three-peat for Blaney hardly will ameliorate the fact that it also would mean Logano’s title defense is over.
And if Logano wins, Blaney will feel the pain.
At least one Penske contender is leaving southwest Virginia in a funk Sunday night.
“It sucks, you know one of your guys isn’t going to transfer for sure,” Penske competition director Travis Geisler told NBC Sports after Talladega. “We’ve got to figure out how to get one of them through.”
There will be no shame if the opportunity for a fourth consecutive championship disappears for Penske at Martinsville. Comprised entirely of drivers from the Gibbs, Penske and Hendrick Motorsports powerhouses, this was the most elite Round of 8 in the 12-season history of the elimination playoffs.
Though the New Hampshire speed showed flashes of Penske’s flat 1-mile magic, there also was some internal doubt if it would hold for two months, given that JGR’s Christopher Bell and Hamlin finished 1-2 in March at Phoenix.
“I think we showed up as a group as good (at New Hampshire) as we’ve ever been,” said Jonathan Hassler, crew chief for Blaney. “Does some of that carry over to Phoenix? Sure, but are we going to be the fastest car in every run of practice and qualifying and lead the whole race? Absolutely not. I think Gibbs were definitely stronger at Phoenix this spring than they’ve ever been and will be super competitive there in a couple of weeks.”
It would be foolish to count out Penske from putting up a fight. Never further away from Victory Lane than a late-race restart, Logano has proven the toughest out in NASCAR’s premier series. After his Talladega win, Briscoe emphasized the importance of JGR blocking out a Penske driver from advancing to Phoenix.
But there already are strong odds of that happening. Racing Insights puts the probability of qualifying for the championship showdown at 12.5% for Blaney and 6.1% for Logano.
For a team so accustomed to controlling the title race, it’s a sobering situation.
And it can’t be any easier knowing that Martinsville will end only half-well at best.
MARTINSVILLE, Va. — The ending to Thursday’s NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour season finale at Martinsville Speedway carried mixed emotions for Justin Bonsignore.
A year-long pursuit of his fifth series championship ended in a runner-up finish to Austin Beers in the point standings. Despite losing the war, Bonsignore did claim one last battle in the Virginia is for Racing Lovers 200, putting together a strong performance for his second victory of 2025 and his 47th overall.
From Bonsignore’s perspective, more showings like the one at Martinsville could have shifted the title battle with Beers in his favor. While he could not help but reflect on the missed opportunities in 2025, Bonsignore took solace in defending his Martinsville triumph from last year’s championship campaign.
“We had a great car all day, unloaded well, obviously qualified on pole and did everything we could to keep [Beers] honest,” Bonsignore said. “We just didn’t do a good enough job all year for that as far as the points. A great night to cap off a so-so season by what we feel our standards are.
“It was amazing we had a shot [at the title], but it was nice to get a second win and a second grandfather clock.”
The Modified Tour championship was well within reach of Bonsignore entering Martinsville, as he only trailed Beers by 14 points. A maximum points night with a victory, pole, a lap led and the most laps led would have given Bonsignore the title if Beers finished eighth or worse.
Bonsignore took care of the pole and led the opening portion of the Virginia is for Racing Lovers 200, giving him two crucial bonus points to help erase his deficit. Even with Beers bogged down in traffic from his eighth-place starting position, Bonsignore anticipated the running order would change several times throughout the night.
Cautions brought strategy into play, as teams came down pit road twice per Modified Tour rules to change tires or insert fuel. Bonsignore ended up losing track position through the two pit stop sequences, all while Beers gained spots to re-establish control of the points lead.
The speed in Bonsignore’s car enabled him to methodically climb back toward the lead, but a victory ended up being his only feasible goal on the evening. Beers never lost track position after the first pit stop sequence and secured a runner-up finish to become the youngest champion in Modified Tour history.
Bonsignore offered nothing but praise for Beers at the end of their championship bout, making sure to congratulate the young competitor in Victory Lane. From the moment he first met Beers, Bonsignore noticed plenty of characteristics that he knew would one day translate to success on the Modified Tour.
“I hate that [Beers] beat me to [become champion], but he’s a great young man,” Bonsignore said. “He joined the series four or five years ago, and I don’t know how, but we just hit it off. We became really good friends at the track, tried to give him advice and took him under my wing a little bit.
“He’s a super good kid. He was raised by great people.”
Beers, who is the son of two-time Modified Tour race winner Eric Beers, joins an elite list of previous series champions that include Bonsignore, Tony Hirschman, Doug Coby and Mike Stefanik, among many others.
The idea of being a part of such a group was a surreal one for Beers, who always wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps and become a successful Modified driver. After three full-time years of hard work and patience on the Modified Tour, Beers will now forever be immortalized as a series champion.
“It’s pretty insane to think about,” Beers said. “Growing up, going to these Modified races with my dad, [I] was dreaming of running on the Tour. Now to be a champion with all those guys like Mike [Stefanik], and Justin, someone who I have a lot of respect for. I pride myself in trying to be like Mike a little bit with how he was championship-wise.
“[Mike would be OK] with running second, but championships mean more than wins. To be a champion in this division is unbelievable.”
With Beers only being 22, he still has plenty of time to one day reach the highs of previous Modified Tour champions, which includes the four titles Bonsignore has claimed during his illustrious career.
Bonsignore knows he is still more than capable of at least tying Hirschman with five total championships, which is why the lack of victories in 2025 was frustrating. The last two years saw Bonsignore win five races apiece, a trend that was replaced with only two this year.
A handful of suboptimal showings mixed into his decreased efficiency prevented Bonsignore from celebrating both a victory and a championship on Thursday.
“I crashed myself at Seekonk [Speedway] on the last lap and I probably would have won the championship [if I didn’t],” Bonsignore said. “We just didn’t run great. There were times throughout the summer when we were eighth or ninth. Our big goal in this series is to make it to tech every week and you’ll have a shot.
“I’ve been doing this 16 years and have only won four of them. You’re going to lose way more than you win in this game.”
Instead of lingering too much on the hypotheticals, Bonsignore plans to enjoy his second Martinsville victory with his family and team before regrouping for 2026, where the pursuit for a fifth NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour title will begin once again.
Stephen Kopcik ended the 2025 Modified Tour season with a third-place finish. He was followed in the running order by Joey Coulter and Craig Lutz to round out the top five.
The rest of the top 10 finishers consisted of Tyler Rypkema, Eric Goodale, Conner Jones, Matt Hirschman and Mike Christopher Jr.
The Modified Tour now enters a three-month hiatus before the 2026 season commences. New Smyrna Speedway will open the new year on Feb. 7, with the race being broadcasted live on FloRacing.
Some dreams can be simple, like hoping Santa Claus brings you a new PlayStation for Christmas.
Other dreams, like the one shared by Austin Beers and Mike Murphy, are a bit more complicated.
Beers, a 22-year-old, second-generation racer from Northampton, Pennsylvania, and Murphy, a 68-year-old Irish immigrant, dreamed of someday winning the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour championship together.
On Thursday night, Beers and Murphy got to live out their dream. Driving Murphy’s No. 64 KLM Motorsports Modified, Beers finished second in the Virginia is for Racing Lovers 200 to clinch his first championship in NASCAR’s oldest division.
“The biggest thing for me coming in was don’t think about it; don’t think about it, or you’re going to jinx it,” Beers told himself. “I didn’t really think about what I’d say or how I’d feel.”
He didn’t have to say much. In 2025, Beers let his driving do the talking.
In 16 Modified Tour races this season, Beers never finished worse than ninth. He scored two wins – at Lancaster Motorplex and Riverhead Raceway – to go along with 12 top fives and 16 top 10s.
He was the only driver to complete every possible lap this season, and he led all drivers with a 4.6 average finish.
Austin Beers celebrates after clinching the 2025 NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour championship Thursday at Martinsville Speedway. (Photo: Ted Malinowski/NASCAR)
Despite all those incredible stats, he still had to survive Thursday’s race to win his first championship. He avoided a multi-car melee during a restart and survived an overtime sprint to finish second, more than enough to clinch the championship.
Anxiety and stress levels were at all-time highs, but Beers showed maturity and composure beyond his years during a race that could have easily derailed his entire season.
“I knew I just had to do what I’ve been doing my whole life — that was the biggest thing,” Beers said when discussing the final restart. “I brought it home to the line and heard (on the radio) 2025 NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour champion. That was a great feeling.”
As if that wasn’t good enough, Beers wrote a new chapter in the Modified Tour history books with his first championship.
At 22 years, seven months and five days old, Beers is now the youngest champion in the history of the Modified Tour. He broke the record set by current NASCAR Cup Series driver Ryan Preece, who was 22 years, 11 months and 25 days old when he won his Mods championship in 2013.
Beers has come a long way from playing video games with Preece between practice sessions at Modified Tour races a decade ago.
“Ryan was young running the Tour and just getting started, and my dad (Eric) was running the Tour. He’d hang out in the camper with me, and we’d play video games,” Beers remembered. “All the other drivers and crew members would go to the bar after the races. I’ve looked up to Ryan my whole racing career and pretty much since I was 6 years old.”
Murphy, who most of his friends and family affectionately call “Murph,” has watched Beers take his small team from a mid-pack organization to champion in the span of just four years.
For the native of Waterford, Ireland, just being in position to win a Modified Tour championship was something he never fathomed when he bought his first race car in the mid-1990s.
“This beats all of our expectations,” Murphy said. “We never even dreamed we’d be in a position like this when we started 25 or 30 years ago. Dreams come true, right?
“I’d never even seen what the (championship trophy) looked like, because we’d usually be pitted way over (in Turn 4) and the (trophy) would be over (in Turn 1). In all the years we’d been doing it, I never saw it for that reason.”
Austin Beers became the youngest NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour champion in series history Thursday evening. (Photo: Ted Malinowski/NASCAR)
The KLM Motorsports team is truly a family operation. The team, which is named after Murphy’s wife Maggie and children Lyndsey and Kelly, is led by former driver Ron Yuhas and Sly Szaban.
The group has flourished since tabbing Beers to drive the No. 64 for his rookie campaign in 2022. Beers delivered the team’s first Modified Tour win in 2023 at Richmond Raceway, and since then, he has added four more checkered flags to Murphy’s growing collection.
It’s all still a bit surreal for Murphy, who was forced to sit on the sidelines for much of the 2024 season and the start of the 2025 season due to a host of health issues.
In January, Murphy got a new lease on life when he received a bilateral lung transplant. By May, he was back at the race track watching his driver and team chase a championship.
This could have been the worst year of Murphy’s life. Instead, he’s the living embodiment of the American dream.
“This is the best year of my life. I got a second chance at life,” Murphy said. “Hard work, I would say, is all it takes. This is a great country. A country of opportunity. The only thing that is going to stop you is yourself.”
While the championship meant the world to Beers and his family, Beers felt it was more important to deliver the title to Murphy. After all, Murphy is the one who took a chance on an unproven, 18-year-old kid.
Murphy gave Beers all the tools he needed to become the Modified Tour champion. And Beers delivered.
“Murph gave me the ultimate break to run this car and get my name out there,” Beers said. “Obviously the last year was really tough not having him at the race track. With him getting that lung transplant, you don’t know what’s going to happen. It was a pretty emotional time for our whole team.
“He’s been running the Tour since my dad (Eric) was running (the Tour), so 2010 or 2011. After all these years of ups and downs, to finally deliver that championship to him, it means more to me to give that championship to him than for me to win that championship, honestly.
“I owe everything to Murph and Maggie for giving me this opportunity to begin with, because I wouldn’t have it without them.”
With a Modified Tour championship secured, Murphy hopes to have Beers back next season to chase another championship.
However, what Murphy really wants is for Beers to get an opportunity to move on to bigger and better things.
That’s his new dream. It’s a dream Murphy believes that, like Thursday’s championship, Beers can make a reality.
“I hope this is a steppingstone,” Murphy said. “He’s still young. He’s only 22. Hopefully there is somebody out there watching and will see how good he is, and maybe they’ll offer him a ride somewhere along the way.
“I’d love to see him walking in Preece’s footsteps. Can you imagine? You turn the television on Sunday and see him at the race and you say, ‘We knew him when he was only a kid.’
“That would be another unbelievable dream as good as this. Maybe better.”
With one notable exception, the elimination race in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series features the closest competition among the three national touring series.
With three spots left in the Championship 4, five drivers are within 15 points of each other entering Friday night’s Slim Jim 200 at Martinsville Speedway (6 p.m. ET, FS1, NASCAR Racing Network, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
With a record 10 victories this season, Corey Heim is guaranteed a spot in the Championship 4, but second-place Rajah Caruth is only 14 points above the current elimination line.
Sixth-place Layne Riggs is only 15 points behind Caruth. Between them, Tyler Ankrum is eight points above the line, Kaden Honeycutt is five points to the good, and defending series champion Ty Majeski trails Honeycutt by five points.
Caruth finished ninth last Friday at Talladega to preserve his position above the cutline, and he’s determined to concentrate on the task at hand.
“Similar to Talladega, we have to treat it like a normal race,” said Caruth, whose best finish in four Martinsville starts was seventh in the 2024 spring race. “Obviously, the stakes are higher, but you can’t psych yourself out of it. I think my mindset in the Round of 8 has been good to keep it calm and focus on the big picture.
“Anything can happen and take you out of the game. If you can keep yourself in it and not self-sabotage your day, you will have the opportunity to capitalize on others’ misfortunes and gain points wherever you can find them.
“We are in a good spot, and I know there are six other drivers that would love to be in the position we are right now. Those 14 points can vanish quickly, so we have to be ready to go off the truck to preserve that point cushion.”
Two JR Motorsports drivers — prolific rookie Connor Zilisch and defending NASCAR Xfinity Series champion Justin Allgaier — already have qualified for the Championship 4 on points.
Two other JRM drivers, though, are locked in a close battle for the final Championship 4 berth as the series moves to Martinsville Speedway for Saturday’s IAA & Ritchie Bros. 250 (7:30 p.m. ET, The CW, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Carson Kvapil arrives at the legendary 0.526-mile short track 11 points above the cutline, leading teammate Sammy Smith by that margin entering the event that will set the field for the Nov. 1 title race at Phoenix Raceway.
If past performance is any indication, Smith has an edge in the elimination race. In six starts at Martinsville, the No. 8 Chevrolet driver has scored five top 10s, including two runner-up finishes and a third-place result.
“Heading into Martinsville under the cutline is not where we envisioned ourselves, but we’ve been strong here in the past, and this No. 8 Pilot team is hungry to advance to the Champ 4,” Smith said. “Just like Talladega last week (where Smith finished ninth), anything can happen on these short tracks, so we just need to be smart and keep our nose clean. If we can do that, I see no reason why we won’t be right where we need to be at the end of the race.”
In two Martinsville starts (the last two spring races), Kvapil has finished fourth and 20th.
Auguring what could be an all-Chevrolet Championship 4, Jesse Love of Richard Childress Racing is 40 points above the elimination line and likely to advance.
Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota driver Brandon Jones, a 2022 winner at “the Paperclip,” has the best chance to break the Chevrolet monopoly. Jones is 20 points below the cut, but he has posted five top 10s and two poles in 10 Martinsville starts.
With Aric Almirola winning at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and Austin Hill taking the checkered flag at Talladega Superspeedway, the field for the Owner’s Championship has already been set. Those two drivers will compete against Zilisch and Allgaier for the owner’s title.
