Brandon Jones passed teammate Ty Gibbs at the white flag and managed to hold to win Friday night’s NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Martinsville in overtime.
Jones earned his fifth career series win and beat Landon Cassill to the checkered flag in the second overtime attempt.
“What a day, I can’t say we could have planned it out any better,” Jones told Fox Sports. “I love the call we made to get stage points. Drove from the back to the front and had older tires than everybody there at the end. …. Fun to beat (Gibbs). He’s hot right now, he’s tough to beat.”
Gibbs finished sixth after he and rookie Sam Mayer got into each other coming to the checkered flag. Mayer finished fifth.
Afterwards, Gibbs and Mayer got into a fight on pit road. The two young drivers are long-time rivals from lower racing circuits.
“I tried to talk to him and he got all in my face,” said Gibbs, who threw the first punch after Mayer shoved him. “At that point we got to start fighting.”
Gibbs led a race-high 196 laps.
“We got put in a bad position there,” Gibbs said. “The only thing I’m mad about is (Mayer) wasn’t going to get past (Allmendinger) and I got hit in the left rear. It’s just frustrating, I got drove into the fence at the end. I was on the other side of it last week (when he forced John Hunter Nemechek out of the way on the last lap to win), so that’s just part of it.”
Mayer later shared his side of the story.
“I put the bumper to him for $100,000 (the Dash 4 Cash bonus) and he got upset about it,” Mayer said. “He’s been doing that to everyone every week so far. … It’s kind of funny, he walked up to me, I had my helmet off already and he kept his helmet on, so obviously he was scared about something. Or, he had it in his mind to throw a punch the whole time.”
Mayer added: “He can throw all the punches he wants, they’re weak as hell.”
Sam Mayer explains what happened between himself and Ty Gibbs. Mayer had a cut above his left eye from the altercation. pic.twitter.com/1OuoCpMNQt
— Jordan Bianchi (@Jordan_Bianchi) April 9, 2022
AJ Allmendinger finished third and won the $100,000 Dash 4 Cash bonus. Allmendinger has now finished in the top 10 in all eight races this season.
Cassill’s second-place finish is the best result of his NASCAR career.
The second overtime attempt was created by a massive pileup on the first one.
As the field took the green flag, Mayer, restarting second on the front row, missed a shift. Allmendinger got into the back of Mayer and turned his No. 1 Chevy to the left into Mayer’s JR Motorsports teammate Noah Gragson. Chaos then reigned.
— NASCAR Xfinity (@NASCAR_Xfinity) April 9, 2022
The massive 12-car crash forced a 19 minute red-flag period for cleanup and was the 16th caution of the night in a race that was scheduled for 250 laps. The night ended with 100 caution laps.
Dale Earnhardt Jr., making his lone NASCAR start of the year, finished 11th. He was spun from contact from behind on a restart with eight laps to go in the original distance as the field entered Turn 1. Earnhardt was 13th at the time of the restart. Earnhardt was 23rd at the time of the first overtime restart and advanced to 13th thanks to the crash.
The highest he ran during the race was fourth at the start of the second stage.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. on his 11th-place finish and we had a little debate about his contact with Josh Berry: pic.twitter.com/HhOFgjrhi8
— Bob Pockrass (@bobpockrass) April 9, 2022
First Stage
After a roughly half hour delay for rain, the race finally began. Only for the caution to come out before the field reached Turn 3 after something broke on Brennan Poole’s No. 74 car causing a huge cloud of smoke.
The race didn’t see its first full green-flag lap until Lap 14 at Ty Gibbs led the field.
The first caution waved on Lap 48 for the stalled car of Howie Disavino.
Ty Gibbs led over Justin Allgaier and Ryan Truex. Dale Earnhardt Jr. had made his way up to 28th after starting from the rear for unapproved adjustments.
The race resumed with 15 laps left in the first stage.
Ty Gibbs easily won the stage.
Second Stage
After the leaders pit, Noah Gragson cycled to the lead. Earnhardt restarted fourth.
Only a few laps into the first run, Joe Graf Jr. made contact with and spun Jade Buford to bring out the caution. Gragson led over Austin Hill, Gibbs, Myatt Snider and Earnhardt.
After the restart, Gragson held the lead over Gibbs until Lap 88. Around this time Allgaier shot up the track in Turn 3 after a wheel hop and managed to keep from going around. Also, Sheldon Creed suffered significant damage to his front end.
The fifth caution of the night came with roughly 20 laps left in the stage for an incident between Joe Graf Jr. and Stefan Parsons.
Following another caution and a round of pit stops, the stage ended with a two-lap shootout as Jones raced to the stage win over Cassill and Ryan Sieg.
Final Stage
The final stage of the race began with 120 laps to go as Gibbs retook the lead.
With 100 laps to go, Gibbs led over Allgaier, Gragson and Allmendinger as Earnhardt ran in ninth.
Seven laps later Allgaier brought out the caution when he spun on his own backed hard into the outside wall.
In the pits, Gragson beat Gibbs to the exit as Allmendinger came out third and Earnhardt fourth. Eight drivers stayed out, as Creed assumed the lead. The race went green again with 89 laps to go.
Ryan Truex then brought the caution out with 85 to go after he spun from contact with Alex Labbe entering a turn. Jones took the lead from Creed right before the incident. On the restart, Josh Berry suffered a cute left-rear tire after contact with Earnhardt. The caused Berry to spin and hit the outside wall.
On the ensuing restart, Matt Mills spun thanks to contact from Riley Herbst and backed into the outside wall in Turn 3 to cause yet another caution.
A few laps into the next run, Gibbs retook the lead from Jones. With 50 laps to go Gibbs led over Gragson and Allmendinger.
Twenty laps later the caution returned when Stefan Parson lost his brakes and hit the Turn 2 wall.
The race restarted with 23 laps to go, only for it to come back out two laps later for a multi-car wreck involving Daniel Hemric and Ryan Sieg.
Click here for the race results.
Click here for point standings.