MARTINSVILLE, Va. — If Saturday’s (March 29) NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Martinsville Speedway wasn’t rock bottom, it sure came close.
There were 10 cautions in the final stage, and the race ended in a last-lap, last-corner Big One after Sammy Smith spun Taylor Gray in turn 3 from two car lengths back.
A replay of the #NASCAROvertime finish at @MartinsvilleSwy. pic.twitter.com/fGJecynkQT
— NASCAR Xfinity (@NASCAR_Xfinity) March 29, 2025
Drivers like Gray and Smith were furious with each other after the checkered flag. Emotions ran high between Daniel Dye and Jeb Burton, as well as Smith and Harrison Burton among others. Current and former drivers, both in the race and watching from afar, were flat out embarrassed at the display.
This racetrack is historic in the grand scheme of all things NASCAR and deserves better.
— Dale Earnhardt Jr. (@DaleJr) March 29, 2025
Are you entertained?
— Mark Martin (@markmartin) March 29, 2025
It is so obvious that an overwhelming majority of this Xfinity field has never had to pay for damage to their own racecar.
— Stephen Mallozzi (@DriverMallozz) March 29, 2025
God I wish I were in the booth. Id get fired but I damn sure would call these idiots out.
— Denny Hamlin (@dennyhamlin) March 29, 2025
“This is where the racing is at; this is not acceptable,” Justin Allgaier said.
“Twenty years ago, we didn’t race like this … it wasn’t what we’re seeing now, and I think the cars being so resilient, the way that it is, it’s just the nature of where we’re at. I hate it, but it is what it is.”
It is what it is. It’s Martinsville. It’s a product of the current style of racing. Those answers were frequently heard from the drivers once they got out of their cars.
“It just is what it is,” said fourth-place finisher and 10-year Xfinity veteran Brennan Poole. “I don’t really care. I’ve been shoved out of the way for wins, and I’ve shoved people out of the way for wins. It’s just when you’re at a short track, it’s just part of the deal.”
“It’s just Martinsville, right?” Dye said. “It’s almost like a superspeedway race at this point. You’re at the mercy of everybody else if you’re going to make it back to the start/finish line at the end of the race.”
Even Sam Mayer, who got into the back bumper of Christian Eckes to spark a backstretch crash that brought out a red flag, said “that’s Martinsville, that’s part of it,” when asked about the contact.
Eckes, as one could expect, was frustrated with Mayer after the latest misstep in his self-described “season from hell.”
“The No. 41 [Mayer] just drove through me. … he’s not going to change things, I mean whatever. Moving on.”
The last-lap contact between Gray and Smith ultimately dominated the headlines, and Gray — who was seeking his first Xfinity win — walked all the way down the frontstretch and to the care center to confront him.
Upon exiting the care center, Smith, while feeling guilty, justified his decision to turn the No. 54 car heading to the checkered flag to the media scrum waiting for him.
“I’m not very proud of that, what I did,” Smith admitted. “It’s just [Gray] has no respect for me, and he was flipping me off under the red flag, swerving at my door. I moved him into [turn] 1 — he still had the lead those two restarts and going on the back straightaway, I thought to myself, ‘What would he do in this situation?’ And he would’ve done the exact same thing.
“So he’s flipping me off, and that right there was the line for me to ultimately make the decision I made.”
“I thought he would have done the same thing to me, move me if I was in the lead, and that’s what you have to do,” Smith continued. If you don’t do that, you’re going to be the one getting run over. And I know everybody’s going to be mad and upset at me and say I’m a dirty driver, but I don’t care because everybody does it, and if I was just going to accept and finish second today, then that just wasn’t going to sit well with me.”
Everybody does it — another common theme among the drivers post-race, whether they got wrecked or wrecked someone themselves.
“There’s a couple of guys out here that don’t drive like that, and then everybody else is just running up everybody for no damn reason,” Jeb Burton said. “It’s just uncalled for, it’s frustrating. I race people with respect, and tonight, I mean all the way up through the field you could see people weren’t racing with respect at all.”
Everyone does it, it’s Martinsville, it’s a product of this racing, and so on. Even if no one outright said it, it was abundantly clear that this shouldn’t be the new normal.
“I think it should be a self-policing sport,” Harrison Burton said. “I don’t like the penalties from NASCAR, right? Like, if someone spins me out, I don’t expect NASCAR to do anything about it, but I guess it’s time for people to start doing stuff about it.”
It is time to clean up the driving that we saw in Xfinity Saturday night — but how? What should be done about it? What can be done about it?
It’s a question that has no clear-cut answer, but it’s a question that needs to find an answer as soon as possible.
Stephen Stumpf is the NASCAR Content Director for Frontstretch and is a three-year veteran of the site. His weekly column is “Stat Sheet,” and he formerly wrote "4 Burning Questions" for three years. He also writes commentaries, contributes to podcasts, edits articles and is frequently at the track for on-site coverage.
Find Stephen on Twitter @stephen_stumpf