Aric Almirola has a knack for staying unbeatable when he’s out front in an Xfinity race, and Saturday at Martinsville Speedway, he proved it again. Almirola led a dominant 150 laps, swept the stages, and kept clear of the mayhem erupting behind him as the final Playoff spots were fiercely fought over.
After the 13th caution of the day, Almirola took command for the last time and easily held off Sammy Smith to complete a season sweep at the Virginia short track. But while Almirola seemed to have a walk in the park, behind him, it was absolute bedlam.
The chaos started early, with AJ Allmendinger and Cole Custer tangling over 9th place on Lap 12, sending Allmendinger into the wall in Turn 3 with a flat tire. That was it for Allmendinger, who could at least take solace in knowing he’d clinched a spot in the Final 4 with his win in Las Vegas.
That first dust up, however, set the tone for the day.
Polesitter Parker Retzlaff’s front-row moment lasted until Lap 53, when Sam Mayer booted him into the wall on a restart. The impact hoisted Retzlaff’s Chevy off its rear wheels and ended the race for the young driver, whose team isn’t accustomed to running at the front.
A one-lap scramble to the stage finish came next, with Almirola narrowly besting Custer in a photo finish by .001 seconds. Almirola then swept the stages when he took Stage 2 without the same level of drama. But the field wasn’t ready to cool off.
William Sawalich shoved into the wall after checking up on lap 134, triggering caution number eight and the race had turned into a full-on crash-fest. Sheldon Creed made a brief effort to challenge Almirola for the lead, but Almirola snatched it right back on lap 154.
Then on lap 175, Kyle Sieg locked up going into Turn 3 and tagged Preston Pardus, setting up another round of pit stops with just 74 laps left. As the green flag waved with 68 to go, Dawson Cram’s spin out on Turn 3 immediately triggered caution number 10. Restart after restart kept piling up.
With 60 laps remaining, the tension thickened, and it didn’t take long for caution 11 to fly. Josh Williams and Blaine Perkins were shoved up the track by Creed, who tried to squeeze under them three-wide going into Turn 1.
The spotlight wasn’t on Almirola anymore but on the fight for second as Custer and Chandler Smith fought hard with Justin Allgaier lurking nearby. Chandler finally nudged Custer aside for the runner-up spot on Lap 219, just as Creed, who seemed to not be making any friends, spun Brandon Jones behind them.
A restart with 25 to go saw Mayer jammed up, Custer and Chandler Smith scrapping again, and a pile-up that swept in Shane van Gisbergen and Ryan Sieg. Mayer limped to the garage with a busted radiator—and busted Playoff hopes.
With 16 laps to go, Sammy Smith took his last shot, making a bold bid for the lead. But this time, Almirola wasn’t letting anyone slip by. He took the win by .587 seconds over Sammy Smith, with Chandler Smith finishing third, Custer fourth, and Allgaier fifth.
“Wow. What an amazing race car,” Almirola said. “So proud of Tyler (Allen, crew chief) and all of the guys on this team. We had an amazing car here in the Spring, and we made a few tweaks to it because I wasn’t totally happy with it, honestly, in the Spring. We showed up yesterday and we were awful. I was like oh, no, what did we do, and they went to work last night and came up with a lot of changes to make to the car. It was so hooked up today. It would just do everything I wanted it to.”
Thanks to their finishes, Custer and Allgaier punched their tickets to the Championship 4, while Sammy and Chandler Smith fell short. And the drama didn’t stop at the checkered flag. On pit road, Chandler confronted Custer, tossing a halfhearted punch before the two were separated.
“He thought he was in a must-win for the owners – which he was,” Chandler Smith said. “But at the end of the day, I get that his dad has some high up role at SHR (Stewart-Haas Racing), so he probably values that a lot, but at the end of the day, I’m a driver. I’m in a must-win situation. He was not at that moment, and he didn’t even try to make the corner. Granted I moved him the lap before, but I’m beating his bumper off for the five laps before that. I gave him grace, before I finally shipped him, and then he doesn’t even try to give me a chance going into turn one. It is what it is.”
Custer naturally had a different take on things.
“He used the bumper on me, so I used the bumper on him,” Custer said. “I don’t know how we’re not even, and then he punches me in the face. I can’t even tell if he really punched me in the face it was so soft, but we’ll go on to Phoenix.”
Creed, Anthony Alfredo, Parker Kligerman, Jeb Burton, and Myatt Snider rounded out the top 10. Now, Almirola and company head to Phoenix, where Custer, Allgaier, Austin Hill, and Allmendinger will go all out for the 2024 NASCAR Xfinity title.
Greg is the author of "The Nuts and Bolts of NASCAR: The Definitive Viewers' Guide to Big-Time Stock Car Auto Racing" and has been published in major publications across the country including the Los Angeles Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He was also a contributor to Chicken Soup for the NASCAR Soul, published in 2010, and the Christmas edition in 2016. He wrote as the NASCAR, Formula 1, Auto Reviews and National Veterans Affairs Examiner for Examiner.com and has appeared on Fox News. He holds a BS degree in communications, a Masters degree in psychology and is currently a PhD candidate majoring in psychology. He is currently the weekend Motorsports Editor for Autoweek.
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