(Photo: Nathan Solomon | The Podium Finish)
RIDGEWAY, Va. — Justin Allgaier won Saturday’s Dead On Tools 250 to make the Championship 4 in the NASCAR Xfinity Series. Cole Custer got the final spot on points.
But it wasn’t anywhere that simple.
Back it up to seven laps to go. Contact between Myatt Snider and Layne Riggs exiting Turn 2 resulted in a massive pileup, claiming 12 cars and jamming the track. NASCAR threw a red flag and worked on the track, throwing down speedy dry to absorb fluid dropped onto the surface.
At that point, Austin Hill led over Richard Childress Racing teammate Sheldon Creed. Cole Custer had a two-point advantage over Justin Allgaier for the final spot, while Creed needed to win to advance.
The field stopped in Turn 1 for nearly 30 minutes, waiting to refire the engines.
“You just don’t even know what to think,” Custer said after the race when asked about the lengthy stoppage. “You know it’s just going to be a mess is the problem. People are gonna be wrecking each other, moving each other out of the way and you just hope it works out.”
Once the track became race-ready, it became time to choose. Unsurprisingly, Hill went with the dominant bottom lane. Creed took the top. Nemechek lined up second on the bottom with Allgaier next to him. Can’t forget about Sammy Smith, either — after leading a race-high 147 laps, he lined up third on the bottom.
On the restart, Hill had an advantage coming out of Turn 2. Creed lined up behind him and nudged him going into Turn 3, but the No. 21 car stayed out front coming to the white flag. The track was still slick, nonetheless.
This time entering Turn 1, Creed nudged him a little harder. Hill drifted up the track into the high line while Creed raced him down the back.
“I pushed him up off the bottom, but I didn’t dirty him up,” Creed explained. “I didn’t spin him out and I gave him a chance to finish second. Had I gone in there and wrecked him like Ty [Gibbs] did to Brandon [Jones] last year, different story. I felt like I did what I had to do for my guys to win.”
Creed sent it deep into Turn 3 — maybe too deep — and came up in front of Hill on the top lane. Hill smashed into the No. 2 car, and after Nemechek tagged him out of Turn 4, went wrecking down the frontstretch and claiming innocent cars.
Hill never crossed the finish line and ended up with a 21st-place finish, seven points shy of transferring to the Championship 4. Creed got edged out at the line by Allgaier.
MARTINSVILLE, VIRGINIA – OCTOBER 28: Justin Allgaier, driver of the #7 Hellmann’s Chevrolet, takes the checkered flag over Sheldon Creed, driver of the #2 Whelen Chevrolet, to win the NASCAR Xfinity Series Dead On Tools 250 at Martinsville Speedway on October 28, 2023 in Martinsville, Virginia. (Photo by Jonathan Bachman/Getty Images)
“I know Sheldon has to win to get in, but I mean, at least give me a chance,” Hill said. “I didn’t feel like I was given a chance, and then when he got shoved up the racetrack or whatever happened — I haven’t seen the replay getting into [Turn] 3, but whenever he went up the racetrack, he just parked it in the center of the corner and blew the radiator out of it. So I had no power coming off of [Turn] 4 and that’s why I wrecked.
“He just drives over his head. He always has. Back in the truck days he did. We became buddies last year and we became buddies this year and all, and it’s just uncalled for.”
Hill hopped out of his car and marched down pit road toward the infield care center. But first, he made a stop over to the No. 2 pit box.
As he walked past, Hill clapped in the direction of Jeff Stankiewicz, Creed’s crew chief.
“I’m not driving the car, Austin,” Stankiewicz yelled from atop the box.
Earlier in October, Creed announced that he was departing RCR following season’s end. That came after a few minor run-ins with Hill throughout the season, including the playoff opener at Bristol Motor Speedway. Jesse Love Jr. will take over the ride next season and it is expected that Creed will move over to Joe Gibbs Racing.
Could all of that have affected how the final two laps on Saturday played out? Maybe.
“Can’t wait to have Jesse Love as a teammate,” Hill said. “Maybe he’ll work better with me. Just cannot wait for him to get over to Joe Gibbs Racing and I won’t have to put up with this shit no more.”
While Hill visited the infield care center, Creed got confronted next to his car by Andy Petree, the vice president of competition at RCR.
“[Petree] was just mad at how I raced the 21. But roles reversed? They don’t say anything. Probably part of the reason that I’m leaving,” Creed said. “Obviously, they’re gonna be mad. I felt like I got him up off the bottom and I gave him a chance to finish second or third, and they all just drive into him at the end — the 20 got him. Is it dirty or is it fair? Yeah, but I’m here I’m watching the replay here. We’re side by side into [Turn] 3. I drive up the hill, he gets me really hard in the center and then the 20 spins him there. I can’t control the 20 spinning him.
“I’m just glad that we had the opportunity to be in that situation. I wanted to race him straight up, that’s why I chose the outside. If I was planning on wrecking him, I would have chose third on the restart and I beat him. I beat him into [Turn] 1 on the restart. He spun the tires and hit the rev limiter, and then he doors me in the middle of [Turns] 1 and 2 to keep me even with him. I feel like gloves are off after that.”
Cole Custer secured the final spot in the Championship 4. (Photo: Phil Cavali | The Podium Finish)
Meanwhile, with a 19th-place finish, Cole Custer somehow made it into the championship at Phoenix. He suffered heavy damage in the melee — his battered car coming to rest just before the start/finish line.
He had to cycle the power and pray that the engine would refire — and it did.
“Everybody got spun out there on the last corner and we just got collected,” Custer said. “I mean, there was nowhere to go, everybody’s pushing you into it. We’re all stopped there on the frontstretch and everybody’s just kind of looking at each other, and it’s like, ‘I gotta get this thing fired up, get across the line.’
“It was definitely a little nerve-racking because our volts know jumping around some and then we had radio issues there for a second and the motor was running hot at the start of the race, so definitely some things to worry about. We did great just keeping our cool, making it to the end of the race and giving ourselves a shot at it.”
For the second year in a row, the NASCAR Xfinity Series’ penultimate race came down to overtime — and ended with a feud between parting teammates.
