At least in the playoff era, the Martinsville Xfinity Series race has best been articulated as a ‘dogfight’ at best or a ‘bloodbath’ at worst.
There have been divebombs at best and wipeouts at worst, anything in the name of advancing or winning to make the final four to compete for a championship next week at Phoenix Raceway.
Connor Zilisch and Justin Allgaier, driving for the two best teams all year, are already locked in, and don’t have to worry about the worst-case scenario.
“At the end of the day, guys don’t care whether they’re deserving or not (because) all they care about is whether or not they’re in the championship,” Zilisch said on Saturday during a press conference at Martinsville. “So yeah, it’s very tough but it’s just the format that we have.”
Allgaier couldn’t resist the quip.
“It’s the beauty of being locked in here, trust me,” he said with a quip.
Not that Zilisch, a rookie who set all kinds of full season records, knew what it was like to ever face a must-win at least until next week.
“I know, I know,” he said with a laugh. “I’ve never been on the other side of it, but it’s nice to be on this side of it.”
Who is sweating it out on Saturday night, are their JR Motorsports teammates, Carson Kvapil and Sammy Smith, on each of the elimination cutline.
Provisional Playoff Grid
Connor Zilisch Adv.
Jusin Allgaier Adv.
Jesse Love +40
Carson Kvapil +11
—
Sammy Smith -11
Brandon Jones -20
Sam Mayer -22
Sheldon Creed -41
What must be done
So there are two ways to look at the state of play.
With a winner from below the cutline, Saturday night is a straight-up points battle through two stages between Kvapil and Smith and scoring points even at the expense of track position come the start of the final stage is their main priority.
“For us, we each have our own goals for our team … we’re going to try our hardest to knock the other one out,” Kvapil said of Smith. “If the other three don’t win, it’s going to be me or him, so yeah, he’s going to do his job to try to score stage points and to try to win at the end and we’re going to do the same thing.
“We would love to have all four cars in the final but right now, that looks hard to do. We have to run our own races, and try to keep it clean, and stay out of trouble.”
To his point, it would take Love having an issue in the first stage, scoring no stage points and finishing well outside of the top-30 to give JRM a chance at a sweep. Thus, Smith has to just race it out with Kvapil and hope that Sheldon Creed, Sam Mayer or Brandon Jones do not win.
If that happens, and Love gets in on points, both Kvapil and Smith are out.
“I second what Carson said — that it is going to be hard to get all four JRM cars in — even if that would be the end goal for everyone,” Smith said. “That would be great. But with (Love’s) situation, that will be pretty tough. Like Carson said, it’s about both of us running our race. They are going to be tough. We’re going to be tough. It’s going to be tough for everyone and hopefully someone below us doesn’t win and knock us both out.”
Kvapil needs to make up 29 points on Love to advance if there is a winner below them. Of course, if Zilisch or Allgaier win, that also makes it easier for both of their teammates to find a way to get in should Love have an issue.
Principle’s Office
NASCAR Xfinity Series managing director Eric Peterson is going to have a brief meeting with his drivers before the race on Saturday night.
The message will be a reminder to race in a way that represents the entire industry in a respectful light given how previous elimination races have gone, but also the spring race in which Smith drove through Taylor Gray on the final lap following a series of contact incidents between the two leading up to the finish.
Smith was docked 50 points and fined $25,000 for the move and the field got a talking to from Peterson after that race. He is going to hammer that message home one more time on Saturday to race respectfully.
Allgaier, the reigning champion, ultimately offered a very nuanced take on the matter.
“It definitely calmed things down for a while, right,” he said. “I felt like the racing got a lot cleaner, a lot better. You’re asking racers to put their entire season in the balance of a split second decision and that produces the chaos we’ve seen the last handful of weeks.
“These decisions dictate the entire course of your season.”
Allgaier pointed to the Truck Series race on Friday night where Layne Riggs chose to be more caution, even if he lamented being faced with that decision, but was proud of how everyone raced in that division.
“There are drivers doing this the right way. There are others who are not, and listen, at the end of the day, when I walk out of here or Phoenix, I have to be okay with how I raced. Everyone else has to feel the same. Everyone is going to race differently with that in mind.
“I feel like, our culture at JR Motorsports, we get held accountable, even if we don’t always make the right decisions in real time. Anything can happen tonight, and I have two teammates that are going to battle to race their way in, but ultimately Eric Peterson and NASCAR has done a really good job in having conversations with the drivers — telling us to put on the best race we can and not go over the line.
“The action comes from that line. We want to be on it, just not over it.”
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