TALLADEGA, Ala. — As Sammy Smith walked away from the interviews and Victory Lane celebrations following an overtime win in Friday night’s NASCAR truck race at Talladega Superspeedway, he smiled and promised there would be no post-race party because he had a race to win Saturday.
And he did just that.
The 22-year-old JR Motorsports driver snapped a 53-race winless streak in the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series Saturday afternoon with a dramatic last-lap pass in his No. 8 JR Motorsports Chevrolet to claim a 0.084-second win over the day’s most dominant driver, his teammate Carson Kvapil in The Progress Group 250, which served as the seventh race of The Chase presented by Mobil 1.
MORE: Race results | At-track photos: Talladega
The checkered flag lap was the only one Smith led all day as he became the first driver to win multiple series races at the famous 2.66-mile high banks since his team owner NASCAR Hall of Famer Dale Earnhardt Jr. did it back in April 2003.
And Smith becomes the first non-NASCAR Cup Series driver to sweep both the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series and O’Reilly Series races at the same track since the late Greg Biffle at Phoenix Raceway in 2001.
“Man, that was mentally draining, just thank you to everybody,” Smith said. “It was a great executed race by JRM and we did a good job sticking to our plan with getting those guys [Kvapil’s team] stage points. I’m sure they wanted them to win, but I had a good run there to take it and [spotter] Tyler Green did a great job up top to help me get backed up. Thanks to Jesse [Love] for pushing me.
“Really, I’m just happy for everyone on this No. 8 Chevrolet, it’s been a tough year this year and I’m looking forward to Martinsville next week,” said Smith, who announced this weekend he will be moving to the Truck Series full time in 2027 with Tricon Garage.
Kvapil, whose No. 1 JRM Chevy led a race-best 67 of the 94 laps — including 31 of the last 32 laps — was obviously disappointed in the outcome after such a strong day at the front of the field. He remains fifth in the championship run, however, and cut 20 points out of his deficit to Love, but still trails by 59 points.
“First things first, [crew chief] Rodney [Childers] and all the guys on this entire No. 1 team brought a fast race car and we’ve been if not the best car, one of the best cars at all the speedways this year,” Kvapil said. “So I knew this weekend would be a big opportunity for us to have a big points day and really eat away at that gap. We did our jobs in Stage 1 and 2 and got 19 stage points and put ourselves in position at the end, leading the race.
“You can always sit back, and hindsight is 20-20, but I don’t know. It’s hard to tell who’s going to have the momentum. … I thought overall our organization did a great job of working together better this year.”
Significant to the championship standings, Kvapil outpaced Richard Childress Racing’s Love, who started from pole position for a record fifth consecutive Talladega O’Reilly Series race and rallied to a third-place showing after a challenging afternoon that cut his lead atop the standings. With only a pair of races now remaining in the championship battle, Love’s gap to second-place Justin Allgaier closed from 36 points before the green flag to only 19 points after the checkered flag.
“I was the ‘help,’ which is fine. I realize I was a little stubborn in Stage 1 and 2,” Love said. “… Hats off to JRM and all the Hendrick engine shop cars, they knew what they were doing and executed it very well the whole race. I had zero chance really to do anything.
“You still try, still give it the ole’ college try, but I just realized there probably wasn’t one car out there that was going to push the 2, so I was like, all right, I’ll just play ball and push whoever’s in front of me and see where that puts us at the end. It was definitely a little bit frustrating for sure, but in the middle part of that race if you had told me I was going to finish third, I’d have been jumping up and down in joy.
“Happy to leave here with the [points] lead.”
Allgaier finished fourth on the day, won Stage 2 and cut his deficit to Love heading to next Saturday’s race at Martinsville Speedway — a victory of sorts for the weekend.
“I feel like this is the pace we’ve had all year,” Allgaier said. “We’ve run out front. We’ve just had things out of our control happen and honestly, that’s what makes it weird. I love this [new championship] format even though it’s kinda going against us at the moment. We just haven’t — not by our own accord — had the races go the way we wanted to. We’ve been behind, but days like today are what we need. And we’ve got to go do that next week at Martinsville and the next week at Homestead [season finale]. I’m pumped.”
MORE: Watch NASCAR video highlights
Haas Factory Team driver Sheldon Creed rounded out the top five with Hendrick Motorsports rookie Corey Day finishing sixth — the top-six drivers among the 12-driver championship field.
Blaine Perkins, Dean Thompson, Chase-eligible Brandon Jones and Anthony Alfredo rounded out the top 10.
The first caution flag for an incident waved on Lap 57 for trouble at the front of the field. Harrison Burton was leading the inside lane when his No. 24 Toyota drifted high on exit. Kvapil dove to his left while Taylor Gray moved down to side draft, leading to contact between Burton and Gray. Gray spun and collected fellow Chase drivers Austin Hill and Jones, but all three remained on track and continued.
Chase contender Parker Retzlaff worked his way well inside the top 10 during Stage 1 after starting 26th. However, his No. 99 Viking Motorsports Chevrolet spun through the Turn 3 grass with five laps remaining in Stage 1, dropping Retzlaff to last place at the stage end, two laps down, as the caution flag was not displayed, his car remaining beneath the racing surface. Retzlaff did earn the free pass to recover one of his laps under the first stage break, then rejoined the lead lap at the conclusion of Stage 2 before ultimately finishing 31st.
Five Chase drivers were eliminated from championship contention on Saturday: Gray, Hill, Jones, Retzlaff and Rajah Caruth. Each of those drivers trail Love by 155 points or more following Saturday’s race, a margin too tall to erase with just two races remaining.
The NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series returns to action next week in the National Debt Relief 250 at Martinsville Speedway on Oct. 31 (4 p.m. ET, The CW, ESPN Unlimited, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Taylor Gray is the defending fall race winner.
Contributing: Staff report