TALLADEGA, Ala. – Regan Smith’s patience in Sunday afternoon’s 1000Bulbs.com 500 at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway paid off for Leavine Family Racing.
While Stewart-Haas Racing dominated the headlines and controlled the complexion of the race, Smith in his interim driving role LFR put himself in position to capitalize when the race found itself in a green-white-checkered finish in NASCAR overtime.
15 laps from the finish, Smith sat 24th and likely out of time to make a charge to the front, but when five cars triggered an accident in Turn 4 on Lap 186, it allowed the opportunity for Smith to regroup and make a charge for the two-lap shootout.
In a shoving match to the finish that produced fenders banging, tempers flaring and damaged race cars, Smith emerged the chaos unscathed and earned a 10th place finish in the No. 95 Procore Chevrolet, his best finish in six Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series races this season.
“(A) decent day we were really loose and the guys did a nice job adjusting on it,” said Smith. “Taking the white flag I thought we had gotten in a good position when they wrecked but when the caution didn’t come I hung on the outside without any help.”
It was third top-10 finish in 15 starts at the 2.66-mile superspeedway.
Smith’s performance was back-to-back top-10 finishes on a restrictor plate track for the Concord, N.C.-based LFR who announced earlier this week they’ll switch to Toyota and welcome Matt DiBenedetto as their driver for 2019.
In July, mainstay driver Kasey Kahne finished fourth at Daytona after leading 17 laps to give the organization their best finish in eight years of Cup competition.
The 34-year-old part-time driver who is also a NASCAR analyst on FOX will finish off the year for LFR after Kahne announced earlier this week that he won’t return to the organization this season to finish out his full-time Cup career since being sidelined for medical reasons related to dehydration following the Bojangles Southern 500 at Darlington (S.C.) Raceway in September.
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
