Brandon Jones celebrates Martinsville win as Gibbs, Mayer fight

Martinsville Speedway is a classic short track where bumping and banging are to be expected, but the NASCAR Xfinity Series was perhaps too eager in that department. Friday night’s Call 811 Before You Dig 250 seemed to refer to digging graves for much of the field as fourteen caution flags were flown for incidents, including a massive pile-up at the start of overtime that collected fourteen cars. A wild scramble to the finish only added to the nighttime fireworks as Brandon Jones held off team-mate Ty Gibbs for the win before Gibbs got into a brawl with Sam Mayer regarding final-lap contact.

Gibbs won the pole and the tone was set even before the race began as rain resulted in a delay moments after the command was given to fire engines. When the race finally began, it only lasted a single lap before Brennan Poole‘s car failed. Compared to later segments, the first stage was relatively scant on yellows as Howie DiSavino III was responsible for the only other caution when his driveshaft broke. By the end, Gibbs led Justin Allgaier, Ryan Truex, Landon Cassill, Daniel Hemric, A.J. Allmendinger, Jones, Josh Berry, Mayer, and Sheldon Creed.

Stage #2 saw Jade Buford, Stefan Parsons, and Derek Griffith go around, with Parsons doing so after contact from Joe Graf Jr. who would be involved in a number of later collisions, while Griffith was the victim of a bump with Anthony Alfredo. Due to late pit stops, Jones would take the segment ahead of Cassill, Ryan Sieg, Brandon Brown, David Starr, Alfredo, Parsons, Jeremy Clements, Riley Herbst, and Shane Lee.

The final segment could be described as all hell breaking loose as ten cautions occurred, many of which were for single-car spins brought upon by bumps from others. All four JR Motorsports were involved in an incident, perhaps notably team owner Dale Earnhardt Jr.—who was making his annual one-off start—spinning employee Berry. Earnhardt himself went around with eight laps remaining to set up overtime. The ensuing green flag only resulted in a parking lot when Mayer missed a shift while restarting second and stacked up the outside line. JRM team-mate Noah Gragson restarted on the inside but came up and was clipped by Mayer. Officially, fourteen drivers were involved: Gragson and Mayer, Alfredo, Allmendinger, Berry, Brown, Griffith, Herbst, Jeb Burton, Bayley Currey, Austin Hill, Mason Massey, Myatt Snider, and Kyle Weatherman.

Gibbs and Jones comprised the front row for the second overtime attempt. Despite an effort on the inside by Jones, Gibbs kept him at bay to take the white flag. Jones tried again via the inner groove exiting turn two and successfully cleared him in turns three and four as Gibbs was shuffled back into a three-wide run with Mayer and Cassill, and the situation concluded with Gibbs being sandwiched between Mayer and the wall.

Jones pulled away to take his first win of the year, fifth in his Xfinity career, and first since Darlington in 2020.

“What a day. I can’t say that we could have called it any better,” said Jones. “We made the call to stay out for stage points and drove the thing all the way from the back to the front. We had older tyres than all of the guys at the end.

“[…] This is a driver’s race track here. I’ve won at a lot of different places now, but this is one that you really have to get after it. Ty ran a really hard race. He cleared me really early there in stage three and he had a strong GR Supra as well. It was fun to beat him. He’s hot right now and tough to beat. This was a good one.”

Credit: Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images

Meanwhile, Gibbs finished eighth and Mayer fifth, which advanced the latter to the next round of the Dash 4 Cash. Gibbs expressed his frustration by bumping into Mayer on the cooldown lap. Upon exiting their cars on pit road, Gibbs confronted Mayer: their conversation escalated into shoving before Gibbs—still wearing his helmet while Mayer had removed his—threw multiple punches. Mayer attempted to tackle Gibbs and the two fell over as crewmen and officials arrived to break up the scuffle.

A NASCAR official was stretchered away from the scene after being caught in the dogpile, though he was subsequently released from the infield medical centre. Gibbs and Mayer were called to NASCAR’s hauler before the meeting ended with what The Athletic‘s Jordan Bianchi reported as them “[shaking] hands on their own accord”. Any penalties imposed by the sanctioning body will be released later in the week.

“I tried to talk to him and then he got up in my face and at that point you have to start fighting,” explained Gibbs. “We got put in a bad position there and the only thing I’m mad about is that the #1 (Mayer) didn’t have anything or wasn’t going to get past the #16 (Allmendinger) there and then I got hit in the left rear. It’s just frustrating and I got drove in the fence again, but I was on the other side of it last week. It’s just part of it.”

Mayer told FOX Sports’ Bob Pockrass, “$100 grand on the line, put a bumper to him, that’s what short track racing’s all about. He got upset and… ‘short track racing and all that nonsense,’ so that’s whatever.” The “short track racing” remark was given with a nasal voice, intending to parody Denny Hamlin‘s (a Joe Gibbs Racing driver like Gibbs) sarcastic remark about Joey Logano following their fight at the 2019 fall Martinsville Cup race.

“He threw a couple of punches. They were weak, so I can’t say much about that.”

Race results

Finish	Start	Number	Driver	Team	Manufacturer	Laps	Status
1	12	19	Brandon Jones	Joe Gibbs Racing	Toyota	261	Running
2	7	10	Landon Cassill	Kaulig Racing	Chevrolet	261	Running
3	13	16	A.J. Allmendinger	Kaulig Racing	Chevrolet	261	Running
4	14	21	Austin Hill	Richard Childress Racing	Chevrolet	261	Running
5	21	1	Sam Mayer	JR Motorsports	Chevrolet	261	Running
6	11	98	Riley Herbst	Stewart-Haas Racing	Ford	261	Running
7	4	18	Ryan Truex	Joe Gibbs Racing	Toyota	261	Running
8	1	54	Ty Gibbs	Joe Gibbs Racing	Toyota	261	Running
9	8	39	Ryan Sieg	RSS Racing	Ford	261	Running
10	15	51	Jeremy Clements	Jeremy Clements Racing	Chevrolet	261	Running
11	30	88	Dale Earnhardt Jr.	JR Motorsports	Chevrolet	261	Running
12	20	38	Parker Retzlaff	RSS Racing	Ford	261	Running
13	9	11	Daniel Hemric	Kaulig Racing	Chevrolet	261	Running
14	16	23	Anthony Alfredo	Our Motorsports	Chevrolet	261	Running
15	18	36	Alex Labbé	DGM Racing	Chevrolet	261	Running
16	27	34	Kyle Weatherman	Jesse Iwuji Motorsports	Chevrolet	261	Running
17	29	4	Bayley Currey	JD Motorsports	Chevrolet	261	Running
18	37	5	Matt Mills	B.J. McLeod Motorsports	Chevrolet	261	Running
19	10	8	Josh Berry	JR Motorsports	Chevrolet	261	Running
20	3	9	Noah Gragson	JR Motorsports	Chevrolet	261	Running
21	36	26	Derek Griffith	Sam Hunt Racing	Toyota	261	Running
22	31	48	Jade Buford	Big Machine Racing Team	Chevrolet	260	Running
23	35	08	David Starr	SS-Green Light Racing	Ford	260	Running
24	19	31	Myatt Snider	Jordan Anderson Racing	Chevrolet	260	Running
25	34	6	Ryan Vargas	JD Motorsports	Chevrolet	260	Running
26	24	07	Joe Graf Jr.	SS-Green Light Racing	Ford	260	Running
27	28	35	Shane Lee	Emerling-Gase Motorsports	Ford	260	Running
28	23	99	Stefan Parsons	B.J. McLeod Motorsports	Chevrolet	260	Running
29	2	7	Justin Allgaier	JR Motorsports	Chevrolet	260	Running
30	5	2	Sheldon Creed	Richard Childress Racing	Chevrolet	259	Running
31	33	66	J.J. Yeley	MBM Motorsports	Toyota	259	Running
32	25	27	Jeb Burton	Our Motorsports	Chevrolet	255	Accident
33	26	91	Mason Massey	DGM Racing	Chevrolet	255	DVP
34	17	68	Brandon Brown	Brandonbilt Motorsports	Chevrolet	250	Accident
35	38	28	Natalie Decker	RSS Racing	Ford	242	Running
36	22	44	Howie DiSavino III	Alpha Prime Racing	Chevrolet	37	Driveshaft
37	6	02	Brett Moffitt	Our Motorsports	Chevrolet	13	Driveshaft
38	32	47	Brennan Poole	Mike Harmon Racing	Chevrolet	0	Clutch
DNQ		45	Ryan Ellis	Alpha Prime Racing	Chevrolet
DNQ		77	Ronnie Bassett Jr.	Bassett Racing	Chevrolet
DNQ		13	Chad Finchum	MBM Motorsports	Toyota
DNQ		78	Josh Williams	B.J. McLeod Motorsports	Chevrolet
DNQ		52	Harrison Rhodes	Jimmy Means Racing	Chevrolet

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