The first NASCAR Xfinity Series event at Rockingham Speedway in 21 years was decided first on the track and then in post-race technical inspection.
Jesse Love overcame all manner of challenges during the race, one in which a two-year-old racing surface largely locked-down single groove on the bottom and forced his No. 2 Richard Childress Racing team to deploy an alternative fuel strategy to retain track position.
Even then, Love needed Christian Eckes and Ryan Sieg to run out of fuel, and he briefly sputtered himself on the penultimate restart, losing the lead to Sammy Smith, only to bump-and-run by him to win the race.
All of that, just to be disqualified because his team was in violation of body skew rules, which handed the win to Smith and the JR Motorsports No. 8 team instead.
“At the end of the race, in post-race teardown, the 2 car of Jesse Love for RCR failed post-race inspection,” Eric Peterson, Xfinity Series director, told the media, as recorded by Bob Pockrass of FOX Sports. “So, the rule that they violated was 14.14.2.I-5.H. So, that’s truck trailing arms, spacers, and pinion angle shims, says the area of that rule. And the way that that rule reads is that all mating surfaces between the truck trailing arms and the u-bolt saddle must be in contact with each other at all times. And unfortunately, that was not the case when we did the teardown on the 2 car and they were disqualified.”
Smith went from just being pleased to having won the $100,000 bonus, which would have helped pay off his $25,000 fine from Martinsville, to having the bonus and his third career win and first of 2025.
“It’s cool,” Smithsaid. “It’s tough to win them like that. We’ve all been on the other side, like where Jesse is at, but take them how you can, I guess.”
How did he find out?
“There’s obviously been an issue for like two hours now so me and my crew chief hung around, got nowhere to be until church tomorrow for Easter so just hang around and glad I stayed.”
The race featured 14 cautions for 83 laps — with nine yellows occurring in the final stage — and now features a fresh top five that also includes Parker Retzlaff’s career best runner-up, Harrison Burton in third, a franchise best for AM Racing and Brennan Poole giving Alpha Prime Racing a rare top-five in fourth.
