Aric Almirola dominated at Martinsville in the Xfinity Series, leading 148 of an eventual 251 laps, but it came down to an intense overtime finish to bring the victory home.
For Almirola, the win is proof that his new career decision was the right one. After years in the Cup Series full time, driving for Stewart-Haas Racing for the past several few years, he signed up for a part-time Xfinity Series schedule with the team at which his career began, getting the chance to spend more time with his family.
“This is incredibly gratifying. This is exactly what I signed up for when Coach called me,” Almirola explained. “I love to drive racecars, and it’s way more fun to drive competitive racecars.”
More than anything, Almirola thought it was vindication. The reason he left Joe Gibbs Racing in the first place was a race at Milwaukee where he was taken out of his racecar after qualifying on pole and leading the race to make their sponsor happy by putting Denny Hamlin in the car while the sponsor’s executives watched. He explained that he’s very much looking forward to hanging an Xfinity Series win banner in the JGR shop.
The race came down to a ten-lap dash when the caution came out for a spinning Ryan Sieg. On the restart, Almirola’s Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Chandler Smith passed him for the lead before Almirola shuffled him out of line to retake the lead. That created a cycle of aggressive racing and hard pushes, but Almirola was quick to clarify that he raced wholly clean.
“The restart before, we were racing side-by-side and I felt like it was very fair,” he explained of how he raced Chandler Smith. “The next restart, I chose the top and he used me up.”
Almirola may have thought he was totally clean, but second-place Sam Mayer was critical of the way he was raced at the end by the entire field.
“You don’t see that in late model racing,” he said. “That is just NASCAR national series racing now. You see it on Sundays because the cars are so hard to pass, and that bleeds into Saturdays because you see what you see on Sunday and you’re going to do it on Saturday.”
He was specifically unhappy with Almirola’s team.
“I mean, every time a JGR car has been behind me this year or next to me, I’ve gotten wrecked or moved out of the way. So it’s tough and I’m going to regret saying what I just said, but it’s just part of racing now and you’ve just got to adapt and overcome and be better because we’re going to see the exact same thing tomorrow.”
Mayer was able to get by Almirola for the lead just before the final caution came out that brought on the Overtime restart. With the carnage that followed, Mayer was just able to hang on for second while Almirola drove away.
“Yeah, you know, this season has been a bag of trash. Sad. Ugly. Dissapointing. All of the ugly words that you can say. But to have a night like this, to be a really good points day, we’re digging ourselves out of a hole.”
After the race, JR Motorsports team owner Dale Earnhardt Jr. came up to speak with him and the team’s other drivers. Mayer explained that Jr. made him feel better about losing out on the win.
“I said, I feel like I’m letting everyone down,” Mayer described. “He said, when I was wrecking all those racecars four or five years ago, that’s when I was letting everyone day. So finishing the race and doing the best with what we’ve got, that’s all you can ask for.”
For Earnhardt Jr, the result was a major positive. His team has struggled so far this year, with Mayer’s description of his season an adequate descriptor for the entire team. So the strong performance is a significant improvement for the team.
“We’re happy,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “Good cars. A little bit better than we were last time. I know we won last time but a little more speed, I thought, a little more competitiveness. Those Gibbs boys are fast, they’re always going to be good everywhere we go, but I felt better about our stuff.”
The team put Travis Kvapil in the No. 88 car for this race, a short track ace. He delivered with a fourth-place finish after the team’s drivers helped him prepare.
“It didn’t really dawn on me until we went one-to-go that I might have a chance to win the race,” he admitted. “Really, what I was focused on was just staying out of trouble. It’s a blast though when it gets down to the last couple of laps, especially under green-white-checkered.”
Justin Allgaier finished fifth for the team as well.
“It’s a big deal,” he acknowledged. “As a company, we’ve just not had the results to show for the speed that we’ve had in all of our Camaros at JR Motorsports. I’ve been proud of everybody at the race shop that puts these cars together and I just feel like we’ve had one thing after another after another that’s kept us from getting where we need to.”
Allgaier was highly critical of the quality of the racing, however.
“It was just chaos. Lots of guys racing just way over their head tonight, and it’s just kind of sad. It’s Martinsville, it’s going to happen, it happens every time we come here.”
Chandler Smith finished third, ahead of Kvapil and Allgaier, to round out the top five. Sheldon Creed, Sammy Smith, Cole Custer, Jesse Love, and Josh Williams rounded out the top ten.
Kaulig Racing rooke Shane van Gisbergen finished eleventh in his first outing at Martinsville. He took his fair share of bumps and gave them out as well, and stepped out of the car with a massive smile. He’s driven plenty of oval races on the iRacing simulator, and the real thing seemed to be everything he’d wanted.
The race featured eleven cautions. The biggest was early in Stage 2 involving Deegan, Weatherman, Honeyman, Heim, Clements, Bean, Beardon, Alfredo, Allmendinger, Seig, Retzlaff, and Jones. Not officially ‘involved’ was Austin Hill, but damage took him out of the race, along with AJ Allmendinger. It brought out the red flag for cleanup.
One extra element was the Dash 4 Cash. As an eligible driver, Aric Almirola earned the bonus $100,000 prize, ahead of teammate Chandler Smith, Richard Childress’ Jesse Love, and Parker Kligerman for Big Machine Racing.
The top four cars competing at Texas next week will compete for the Dash 4 Cash there. That won’t be Almirola, who stressed that he won’t be making the trip out but will watch on TV instead. Mayer, Smith, Allgaier, and Creed should be the four eligible drivers for that one.
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