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Poor Restarts Keep Chandler Smith From Being Short Track King

NEWTON, Iowa — Coming into the Hy-Vee Perks 250 on Saturday (June 15), Chandler Smith had been the guy to beat at short tracks in the NASCAR Xfinity Series.

But despite dominating early at Iowa Speedway, bad restarts late in the going were Smith’s undoing. After leading 131 laps and winning the first two stages, Smith plummeted on the numerous restarts in the final stage, settling in at an eight-place finish.

“I mean, every restart, we weren’t great, to be honest with you,” Smith said. “Was wicked free from when they dropped the green flag, all the way to a good 15 laps into a run. The track would kind of glaze over, and I think it got a little bit better there at the end of the race, but it would almost glaze over and become super, super slick.

“That’s why everyone was running the top, as that was the only place there was grip. It took about 20 laps for it to finally start winding back out. I don’t know. That one stinks really bad as we had a really fast No. 81 Mobil 1 GR Supra for sure. It was lights out fast. That really, really stinks.”

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Prior to Saturday, Smith had won two of the four races so far at tracks one mile and under. He won at both Phoenix Raceway and Richmond Raceway before finishing third at Martinsville Speedway and seventh at Dover Motor Speedway. All three of his NXS career wins have been at short tracks.

It looked like Smith was going to continue to be the series’ best at the smaller ovals with the way the Hy-Vee Perks 250 kicked off. Starting sixth, Smith wasted no time getting to the front, taking the lead from Justin Allgaier on lap 15.

Smith briefly lost the lead when he pitted while John Hunter Nemechek and Jeremy Clements stayed out to lead following a lap 35 caution. But Smith quickly reclaimed the top spot and led for the next 108 laps, taking the two stage wins in the process. No one else led more than 47 laps on the day.

The No. 81 Joe Gibbs Racing car was best at long runs. That was unique in this race, because many in the field had tire troubles once a green-flag run started going beyond 30 laps.

“We had an extremely quick racecar,” Smith said. “That helps. Wasn’t having to abuse my tires to run the pace I was running. Just needed something to be better to fire off for sure.”

During the stage two caution, three cars stayed out when the leaders pitted. Smith tried to pass those three cars, led by Josh Williams, quickly but instead dropped like an anchor had been thrown out the car.

“I feel like I have a good idea of what needed to be better there to just go back through,” Smith said. “Partially, it was my fault when I restarted fourth when I put the 11 [Williams] and whoever else three-wide and got freight-trained.

“That’s on me, but had so many times there on restarts when we should’ve just gone forward with how dominant our car was, but it was just way, way, way too free.”

From that point in the race, Smith never saw the lead again. The final stage had four more restarts, and the chink in Smith’s armor was exposed on all of them.

Smith settled for eighth, and the points from the race put him up to just one point behind points-leader Cole Custer.

“That’s good, but I’d rather have a win sticker next to it,” Smith said.

Content Director

Michael Massie joined Frontstretch in 2017 and has served as the Content Director since 2020. Massie, a Richmond, Va., native, has covered NASCAR, IndyCar, SRX and the CARS Tour. Outside of motorsports, the Virginia Tech grad and Green Bay Packers minority owner can be seen cheering on his beloved Hokies and Packers.

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Drew

That’s unfortunate well better luck next week.