HOMESTEAD, Fla. — NASCAR officials said that driver Matt Mills was transported to an area medical facility for further evaluation after a crash in Saturday’s Craftsman Truck Series race at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
In a Sunday update, Niece Motorsports announced that Mills will remain overnight at a local hospital for a second night of observation as doctors continue to monitor Mills’ oxygen levels due to smoke inhalation, the team said in a statement. Mills announced Monday on X, formerly known as Twitter, that he returned home.
“Glad to be out of the hospital. Still a little raspy as you can hear, but just all the overwhelming support and text messages I’ve gotten just mean so much to me,” Mills said on social media. “Definitely didn’t like being in the hospital as long as I was or being in that situation, so having you guys there to support me and help me get through that, just can’t thank y’all enough. Can’t wait to be back at the race track at Martinsville this weekend and continue doing what I love.”
Mills crashed in the 76th of 134 laps in Saturday’s Baptist Health 200. The 27-year-old driver lost control of his No. 42 Niece Motorsports Chevrolet after a Turn 3 bump from Conner Jones’ No. 66 ThorSport Racing Ford during their contest for 19th place.
Mills’ truck slammed the outside retaining wall and sustained heavy right-side damage. He gingerly exited the No. 42 Chevy after it skidded to a stop, where he was attended to by safety personnel.
Niece Motorsports provided a statement on Mills post-race: “Matt Mills, driver of the No. 42 J.F. Electric/Utilitra Chevrolet for Niece Motorsports in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, is being transported to a local hospital for further observation after contact during today’s race at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Additional updates will be forthcoming, with no additional comments at this time.”
The Al Niece-owned team indicated Saturday evening that Mills would remain at the hospital overnight for continued observation, adding: “Matt and team are grateful for the outpouring of support.”
Jones, a part-time Truck Series competitor making his 21st career start, lashed out in frustration through his team communications after the contact. During the caution period, NASCAR officials penalized him for rough driving, holding his No. 66 truck on pit road for two laps.
Jones declined comment to reporters after finishing 25th in the 34-truck field, but issued a statement through social media later Saturday afternoon.
HOMESTEAD, Fla. — Chase Elliott currently occupies the cellar in the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs’ eight-driver field, sitting an unenviable 53 points below the provisional elimination line. Two events remain in the postseason’s Round of 8 for him to claim a championship-race berth in the Nov. 10 finale at Phoenix Raceway, but Elliott says a radically different approach to those looming weekends won’t better his case.
Elliott’s next opportunity arrives with Sunday’s Straight Talk Wireless 400 (2:30 p.m. ET, NBC, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App) at Homestead-Miami Speedway, where the No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet driver aims to give his playoff fate a boost. Going for broke, waving a magic wand and deviating from what’s gotten him here, Elliott says, isn’t in his team’s playbook.
“You get in these situations, and I think everyone just feels like you’re going to reinvent the wheel to go and win a race, and that’s just not how it works,” said Elliott, the Cup Series champ in 2020. “I don’t have a magic ‘go win’ button. If I did, I’d press it every week. So it’s just, that’s just not how this works. So what you do is, you have to have a base of where you’re at and the things that you do well, and you have things that you don’t do well, and you just try to improve, and you try to make it better. For us, we’ve got to get into a position where we’re qualifying better, where we’re leading more laps and running inside the top five more throughout the event.
“Those are all things that give you opportunities to win, not just some ‘Hail Mary’ that you’re going to hit one in a million on and hope that it’s in the next two weeks. That’s just silly. The odds of that happening are slim to none, at least for me. It doesn’t seem like it works out like that.”
Elliott landed in this precarious playoff spot after his No. 9 Chevy sustained damage in a Stage 2 crash at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. The tangle also snared fellow playoff drivers Tyler Reddick and Ryan Blaney, and all three finished outside the top 30 to tumble onto the negative side of the postseason bubble.
Elliott’s lone victory this season came at another 1.5-mile track, 24 races ago at Texas Motor Speedway in mid-April. He said during a midweek availability that he’s in need of another.
“I think that we’re in a position where we have to win one of the next two,” said Elliott, who would reach career Cup Series win No. 20 upon his next trip to Victory Lane. “That was our thought process going into Vegas. So, while it didn’t work out for us, and we ended up worse than what we went in, I don’t think the goals change at all. So this was really the position that we’ve kind of viewed ourselves in the whole time. So I think we just, yeah, keep the hammer down and try to get a win in one of these next two weeks.”
Editor’s note: Projected finish has been updated after Saturday’s practice and qualifying sessions. Kyle Larson replaces Christopher Bell as the projected winner.
The Round of 8 opener wasn’t just the dogfight we all anticipated it would be — it was an all-out war. Joey Logano and the No. 22 crew yet again proved it doesn’t matter how much pace you bring off the hauler, it takes the best team to win and stamp a ticket to Phoenix Raceway.
Sunday’s Straight Talk Wireless 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway (2:30 p.m. ET, NBC, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App) should be no different; whoever wins will ultimately have to be flawless from top to bottom and may have to take some risk that pays a great reward.
Three drivers who were heavy pre-race favorites last week should be double-circling Miami as must-wins for their title bids. Christopher Bell, Kyle Larson and Tyler Reddick each had a strong case to be in Victory Lane last Sunday, and not only are these three drivers some of the best at riding the fence at Miami, but they opened as the top three betting favorites this week. Granted, most of the elite eight drivers left have been top-tier at Homestead, but that’s why there’s more pressure on Bell, Larson and Reddick to win Sunday — they arguably let one get away, and at this time of year, you simply just can’t let that happen.
In Bell’s case, he enters as the defending winner and has proved time and time again that he thrives with his back against the wall in the playoffs. In other words, he has his sight set on defending his win. The only issue is Miami hasn’t seen a back-to-back winner since Greg Biffle’s three-peat from 2004-06. However, Racing Insights’ early week projection forecasted that to change, with Bell picked as the winner.
Larson has led over 600 laps at Homestead in his last seven starts in South Beach. While he’s had unfortunate luck in all three of the opening round races, the bright side is the No. 5 team has found ways to quickly turn things around. He won six stages there, which is four more than the next-highest driver and won this race two years ago.
Reddick has yet to win at Homestead at the Cup level, though he does have three top-five finishes in his four career starts and has two Xfinity wins there. Plus, he’s not afraid to push it right to the limit when it comes to ripping the fence at Homestead. With Martinsville next week, Reddick should be all-in on going for the win.
OTHER DRIVERS TO WATCH
WILLIAM BYRON: Byron, another former Homestead winner, has been red-hot the last four races with consecutive top fives. The No. 24 is hitting its stride at the right time, and the consistent performances Byron’s churned out are what lead to Championship 4 berths. He’s been itching to win and expressed that last weekend, so it’s only a matter of time.
DENNY HAMLIN: Hamlin’s a three-time Homestead winner and has only one finish worse than 12th in the last 11 Miami races. He had a steering failure last year in this race and playoff struggles have only piled up for the No. 11 team this year, he will need to dig deep and find a vintage performance this weekend.
KYLE BUSCH: Rowdy has eight straight top-10 finishes at Miami. While it is certainly difficult for non-playoff drivers to reach a new level and beat playoff drivers this late in the year, Busch has a streak he wants to keep alive of seeing Victory Lane at least once for two decades, and it’s hard to count him out.
AJ ALLMENDINGER: Here’s another sleeper to watch out for this weekend. Allmendinger has finished in the top five in the last two Miami races, which is tied for the longest streak. This 1.5-mile track is arguably his best as he owns five top 10s and an average finish of 15.5 in 12 starts there.
RACING INSIGHTS’ PROJECTIONS FOR THE STRAIGHT TALK WIRELESS 400
Racing Insights’ advanced statistical formula includes current track, current track type, recent performance, team data and pit-crew data to arrive at a projected winner and full race results.
MARTINSVILLE, Va. — In sports, there are those who are considered generational talents, men like Michael Jordan, Babe Ruth or Wayne Gretzky. They’re the type of competitors who are so dominant, so skilled, that they are instantly considered among the greatest of all time.
The NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour has seen a few competitors like that. Men like Richie Evans, Mike Stefanik, Reggie Ruggiero, Doug Coby and Ted Christopher rewrote record books and collected trophies like few before or since.
After Saturday night at Martinsville Speedway, that list now includes Justin Bonsignore.
The 36-year-old from Holtsville, New York claimed his fourth NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour championship with a dominant win in the Virginia is for Racing Lovers 200.
The win, the 45th of his career, moved him past Ruggiero for second on the all-time Modified Tour win list.
Yet Bonsignore, humble despite his place in history, has a hard time admitting he deserves to be mentioned among the greats who came before him.
“Those guys, Teddy, Michael, Reggie, Richie Evans, they are absolute bad asses,” Bonsignore said. “To be around those guys and have my name mentioned with them, I don’t feel I’m deserving. Those are the biggest bad asses of our series, and to have my name mentioned with them, it doesn’t feel right.”
It’s still a bit surreal for Bonsignore, who not that long ago was simply a weekly racer at New York’s Riverhead Raceway hoping to find the funding to keep racing for another week.
That’s where car owner Ken Massa comes in.
Massa met Bonsignore at Riverhead Raceway on Aug. 1, 2009. Bonsignore, then just 21, had managed to scrape together enough money to enter the Modified Tour race that evening at his home track.
Justin Bonsignore won his first grandfather clock Saturday at Martinsville Speedway, a win that allowed him to clinch his fourth NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour championship. (Photo: Ted Malinowski/NASCAR)
He turned that opportunity into a fourth-place finish, beating men like Stefanik, Christopher, Coby, Todd Szegedy, Jamie Tomaino and Donny Lia, all of whom either had already won or would go on to win Modified Tour championships.
Massa saw something in Bonsignore that day, something Bonsignore perhaps didn’t even see in himself.
After a meeting in the pits and a few phone calls later, Massa was starting a race team that in the years since has won four championships and 45 Modified Tour races, all with Bonsignore as the driver.
With that success has come a friendship and an unbreakable bond, the type formed by a few hardworking people shedding blood, sweat and tears to achieve a dream.
“It hasn’t always been easy. He never gave up on me, and I never gave up on him,” Bonsignore said. “We’re best friends. We’re partners in a business together. He’s financially changed my life forever with our business.
“He and his wife Janine, they’re like another father and mother to me. They’re not old enough, and they get mad that I say that, but they are family-like figures to me because they live 10 minutes away. My parents are 12 hours away. A lot of times when I need advice, I go to them.
“Now I have a family of my own, and they just absolutely love my son and my wife Taylor. They’re just people you’re lucky to come across in life, and you just hope to never lose them.”
For a time this season, a fourth Modified Tour championship seemed like an unlikely prospect. An on-track rivalry with defending series champion Ron Silk reached a boiling point on Sept. 14 at Riverhead in the form of contact between the two while battling for the race lead.
As a result of the incident, Bonsignore went from leading the championship by five points to trailing Silk by 10 points with four races left in the season.
Things didn’t get any better at Monandock Speedway the following weekend. Bonsignore and Silk found each other again, with Bonsignore spinning Silk midway through the race.
Bonsignore finished one spot behind Silk that day, dropping him to 11 points out of the championship lead with three races left.
The team, which is led by crew chief Ryan Stone, refocused. Stone rebuilt one of the team’s most reliable cars and brought it to Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park on Oct. 13.
They won with Bonsignore leading a race-high 121 laps. They brought the same car to North Wilkesboro Speedway one week later. Again, Bonsignore led the most laps, 130, and won.
Silk, meanwhile, earned finishes of third and 11th. Bonsignore went from 11 points behind to 10 points ahead.
“Nobody gave up,” Bonsignore said. “We were publicly upset with what happened at Riverhead. It’s racing. I get it. We didn’t approach Monadnock the way I would have liked. We didn’t run good, and we decided to show our frustrations and show we were willing to lose it all. I’m not good at that. It was stupid.
“We finished the car, and three days after Monadnock, we came and tested at North Wilkesboro. The car was just lights out.”
Justin Bonsignore shares victory lane with his wife, Taylor, and son, Evan, after winning Saturday’s Virginia is for Racing Lovers 200 at Martinsville Speedway. (Photo: Ted Malinowski/NASCAR)
A championship was hardly a forgone conclusion for Bonsignore entering Saturday’s finale at Martinsville. In each of the last two seasons, the drivers who went on to win the championship were involved in incidents during the finale that nearly derailed their seasons.
Bonsignore knew one wrong move, one misstep, would be all it took to cost him a championship and hand Silk his third. So he did everything in his power to control his own destiny.
He started by winning the Mayhew Tools Dominator Pole Award. He took the lead on the opening lap, and other than a mid-race restart following pit stops, he was never passed on track.
The championship was all but clinched with 63 laps left, when Silk limped his No. 16 Modified to the pits with engine trouble. Bonsignore could have backed off, slowed down and just cruised the rest of the way to capture the championship.
That’s not his style, nor is it his team’s style. They wanted a grandfather clock.
“I came off (turn) four and saw a silver car on pit road. I keyed the radio and said, ‘I see what’s on pit road,’” Bonsignore said. “They were like, ‘Just go win the race.’”
Bonsignore did that, becoming just the second driver (Doug Coby, 2015) to end the season by winning the final three races on the schedule.
In a single day, Bonsignore won his fourth Modified Tour championship, won his first Martinsville Speedway grandfather clock and moved into second on the all-time series win list.
This is his life. He’s one of the best Modified Tour drivers ever. And he still has a lot of gas left in the tank.
“This is special. I want to do this until I’m 50,” Bonsignore said. “If I’m competitive and I can keep this team together, I think I can do it. We’re going to try like hell to keep winning races and contending for championships.
“I just want to keep winning races and having fun with my friends.”
HOMESTEAD, Fla. — With 12 laps to go, Cole Custer was able to sniff a potential early title bid and lock into the Championship 4 at Homestead-Miami Speedway until the No. 21 Austin Hill rocketed past the No. 00 Ford on the low line, delivering a knockout punch to the defending NASCAR Xfinity Series champion.
Custer and Hill established themselves as frontrunners early in the race. The two battled for the top spot in the closing lap of the opening stage and again separated themselves from the pack for the majority of Stage 2. Over the 200-lap event, Custer and Hill exchanged the lead six times.
Custer looked poised to take the checkered flag after shooting from third to first on Lap 98 and sailed to almost a five-second lead before the final round of green-flag stops. But eventually, Custer’s long-run speed gave out in the end and he couldn’t keep up with Hill in final laps as the No. 21 soared to a 3.045-second margin of victory, leaving Custer scratching his head and wondering what went wrong as smoke from the No. 21’s burnout on the frontstretch engulfed pit road.
“Just seem to get loose,” Custer said in reference to what he was lacking in the long runs. “You know on the second to last run, I didn’t feel like we were that bad, but the No. 21 got a lot better. So was a little confused by that, but overall, really solid day. I wish we got the win but it is what it is. [Hill] was just lights out today.”
The No. 21 Richard Childress Racing team was lights out. Sweeping the stages, leading a race-high 82 laps and winning the battle off of pit road during both stage breaks. Interestingly enough, Hill didn’t even need to ride the high line close to the wall — which is typically the preferred line at Homestead — and managed to find the necessary speed running the bottom to be in Victory Lane and join AJ Allmendinger as the only two contenders locked into the finale at Phoenix Raceway.
“They were just really, really good on the long run,” Custer added about Hill. “The second to last run, they really fell off for whatever reason, and they seemed to pick up a lot of speed that second to last time. So I don’t know, we got kind of free on the long run, but definitely a little frustrating.”
Each time Custer looked to have Hill on the ropes and pinned down, especially when beating Hill on restarts, the No. 21 would battle back.
“I think the track kind of took some transitions you know,” Jonathan Toney, crew chief for the No. 00 Ford said. “So, we kind of fought back and forth and I think the car got better at the end. But the No. 21 was fast from the drop of the green flag and they done a good job.”
Custer’s runner-up finish marked his fourth top-two finish in the last five Homestead races and while a South Beach celebration would’ve been nice for the Stewart-Haas Racing team, a healthy 28-point gap will have to suffice heading into the penultimate race at Martinsville Speedway next Saturday (3:30 p.m. ET, The CW, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
“I wish it was about a 128 [point lead],” Toney said. “Cole gets around [Martinsville] there, so if we can give him what he needs, we can take care of business there.”
In three Xfinity starts at Martinsville, Custer has one finish outside of the top 10. In the spring event, Custer led 27 laps en route to an eighth-place finish.
“We have a good team and we’ve had good runs at Martinsville, so I’m looking forward to it. I think we should be able to take the fight,” Custer said. “We got to bring everything we got, because you never know who’s going to win.”
HOMESTEAD, Fla. — An emotional Austin Hill climbed out of his No. 21 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet on the Homestead-Miami Speedway frontstretch to celebrate one of the most significant race wins of his burgeoning career — claiming the Credit One NASCAR Amex Credit Card 300 trophy Saturday and securing one of four positions to race for a trophy in the Nov. 9 series championship finale.
Hill — who also swept both of the race’s stage wins — took the lead from Stewart-Haas Racing’s Cole Custer with 12 laps remaining Saturday evening at the 1.5-mile South Florida track and raced off to a healthy 3.045-second win over the fellow playoff driver and reigning series champion Custer.
It was the fourth win of the season for Hill and 10th of this career. But importantly, it is the first time the 30-year-old Georgia native will have a chance to race for the championship trophy after multi-win seasons the last three years.
“I worked so hard for this, a lot of people doubt me but I wake up every day to prove them wrong,” Hill said. “I deserve to be here and I deserve to race for a championship. This 21 team deserves it just as much as I do. They work their [butts] off each and every day just like I do. I’ve got to give it up to those guys. They gave me a hell of a car.
“I can honestly say I’ve never cried coming to the start-finish line, but I had to get my emotions together going into Turn 1 after the checkered, all the hard work and dedication that goes into this. I don’t think everyone’s going to understand what this means for me, for my family and for [sponsor] Bennett. … I had to be on it today.
Pausing to take it in, he added, “This is amazing. To be able to go the Final Four. I’ve worked so hard at this and my dreams came true.”
With his win and AJ Allmendinger’s victory last week at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, now only two positions remain for the title chase with one more race remaining — at the Martinsville Speedway half-miler next week — to establish the championship foursome.
JR Motorsports driver Justin Allgaier — who only had three previous top-10 finishes at Homestead — took the checkered flag in eighth place which was good enough to keep the driver of the No. 7 JRM Chevrolet with the points lead in third place should he need that to advance to the championship race.
Custer, whose No. 00 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford led 67 of the 200 laps, is now the last driver above the elimination line with a 28-point advantage over Saturday’s race polesitter Chandler Smith. The No. 81 Joe Gibbs Racing driver finished 13th and as with the bottom four ranked drivers is essentially in a must-win situation next weekend.
Hill’s rookie teammate Jesse Love ran up front much of the day and finished fourth. He’s now sixth in the points standings — 35 points below Custer.
“It just shows you how good you have to be to get in the Championship 4,” Love said, noting of the Phoenix finale, “I feel like if we could get there we have a shot to win.”
JR Motorsports teammates Sam Mayer and Sammy Smith finished ninth and 22nd, respectively and find themselves in a similar must-win situation to Chandler Smith and Love next week at Martinsville.
JGR’s Aric Almirola finished third Saturday behind the playoff drivers, with Love and JGR’s Sheldon Creed rounding out the top five. Custer’s SHR teammate Riley Herbst, RSS Racing’s Ryan Sieg, Allgaier, Mayer and last week’s race winner Allmendinger completed the top 10.
Of note, 18-year-old William Sawalich finished 24th in his much-anticipated Xfinity Series debut.
The Xfinity Series moves to the Martinsville Speedway half-miler next week for Saturday’s National Debt Relief 250 (3:30 p.m. ET, The CW, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Allgaier is the defending Martinsville fall race winner and Almirola won at the Virginia short track earlier this year in the spring.
NOTE: Post-race inspection in the Xfinity Series garage concluded without issue, confirming Hill as the Homestead winner. The Nos. 1, 21 and 39 each had one unsecured lug nut, which will result in monetary fines.
HOMESTEAD, Fla. — A strategy call from the pit box coupled with a patient move forward landed veteran Grant Enfinger his second consecutive NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series playoff race win in Saturday’s Baptist Health 200 at Homestead-Miami Speedway while his closest competitors ran out of fuel behind him in the closing laps.
Enfinger, who also won the opening race in this playoff round at Talladega Superspeedway three weeks ago, denied the other seven playoff racers a chance at an automatic bid into the championship race at Phoenix. So now at least two drivers will advance based on points earned with only next Saturday’s race at Martinsville to settle which other three drivers move onward into the title fight.
Enfinger’s No. 9 CR7 Motorsports Chevrolet suffered damage on an early race restart, and the team opted to move to a different pit strategy — taking tires and fuel on Lap 80 while most of the day’s previous race leaders opted to pit later on Lap 100. Ultimately, Enfinger was able to save enough fuel and no one was able to catch him as he raced away to his 12th career victory.
Taking the lead for good with 22 laps remaining, Enfinger claimed a 17.5-second win over ThorSport Racing’s Ty Majeski as other trucks on a similar alternate strategy to Enfinger — the No. 38 driven by Layne Riggs and the No. 2 driven by Nick Sanchez — began running out of fuel in the final two laps.
Enfinger had enough fuel to do a burnout to celebrate the win.
“At the end of the day, [crew chief] Jeff [Stankiewicz] just had the best truck out here,” said Enfinger, who actually made up a lap on track after contact on a race restart cut his tire earlier in the day.
“Our car was really fast after about five laps yesterday [in practice] and was the same way today. Jeff did a good job managing me with the tires and then managing me with the fuel. I feel like I saved at least 20 percent more than I did in the first run. Jeff was on me pretty hard obviously and the 38 [Layne Riggs] ran out and the 2 [Nick Sanchez] did too.
“Hard to beat these two weeks,” he added with a grin.
“We’ve had potential all year,” the 39-year-old Alabama native continued. “There’s been sometimes, I haven’t executed and sometimes we’ve just had bad luck. Maybe it’s just time we get our momentum now.”
Connor Mosack finished a career-best third place in the No. 7 Spire Motorsports truck. The day’s most dominant truck, driven by Tricon Garage’s playoff driver Corey Heim finished fourth after leading a race-best 68 of the 134 laps. Heim continues to lead the championship standings and is now 49 points above fifth place with the top four drivers advancing to the title race.
“Overall, a good day for points, but disappointing,” said Heim, who has a series-best six wins on the year. “We were so fast last year and wanted to come back and redeem ourselves and win the race of course. But no complaints as far as points go, makes Martinsville a little bit easier if we put together a decent day.”
McAnally-Hilgemann Racing’s playoff driver Tyler Ankrum, finished fifth — his best finish of the playoff run to date. Veteran Stewart Friesen was sixth, followed by Daniel Dye.
And three playoff drivers — Spire Motorsports’ Rajah Caruth, McAnally-Hilgemann’s Christian Eckes and Tricon Garage’s Taylor Gray rounded out the top 10.
Heading into the next race, Heim has that 49-point edge above the elimination line. Eckes is 38 points to the good and Majeski now holds a 22-point advantage. Caruth is ranked fifth, the first driver outside the playoff bubble, 22 points back. Gray is 24 points back and Ankrum and Sanchez — who finished 13th after running out of fuel — are 41 and 43 points behind, respectively.
Frankie Muniz, the popular actor from the ‘Malcolm in the Middle’ television series, finished 33rd after his truck suffered mechanical problems early in the race.
The Craftsman Truck Series races in the Zip Buy Now, Pay Later 200 at Martinsville Speedway next Friday evening (6 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) to settle the Championship Four field. Eckes won the Martinsville spring race earlier this year.
NOTE: Post-race inspection in the Truck Series garage concluded without issue, confirming Enfinger as the Homestead-Miami winner. The No. 71 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet driven by Rajah Caruth was found with one unsecured lug nut, which will result in a monetary fine.
