MARTINSVILLE, Va.—Slow and steady didn’t win the NASCAR Xfinity Series race for Brennan Poole at Martinsville Speedway.
But patience and attrition enabled the 33-year-old racer to remain in the hunt in Saturday’s US Marine Corps 250 and score his first top-five in 2025 and his first since last year’s spring race at Talladega.
Despite starting 29th in the No. 44 Alpha Prime Racing Chevrolet, Poole wheeled his way to a fourth-place finish, his best result since joining Tommy Joe Martins’ team last year.
“It was wild just surviving there at the end,” Poole said on pit road. “But I had a really good car. Frank Kerr (crew chief) and all my guys gave me just an awesome race car. It was really fast. I could do anything I wanted to do all night.
“We played the strategy just right. We had a little bit better tires at the end, and I was able to make the moves I needed to, to be in a position for a top 10. Then, with everybody just getting shoved off the bottom—which is why I kept choosing the bottom on the restarts to kind of make the most of it—they slipped up and I was there to capitalize on it and get a good finish.”
Poole finished 19th at the end of Stage 1, which ended under the Lap 55 caution. He picked up six positions by Lap 120—to complete the second stage. The final stage was mayhem with 10 cautions, including an 11 minute, 27 second red flag stoppage on Lap 233.
To Poole’s advantage, Kerr elected to pit on a different cycle than most of the competition. The No. 44 Chevy was running 13th when Poole came to pit road on Lap 178 with Christian Eckes, Daniel Dye, Nick Sanchez, Josh Williams, Myatt Snider and Patrick Starpoli.
Although Poole restarted 21st on Lap 184, he kept his nose clean over the final 73 laps. He ran 15th with 50 laps remaining and was ninth when NASCAR flew the red flag with 18 laps left.
The final 12 laps into overtime were sheer chaos, with youngsters Sammy Smith and Taylor Gray using their bumpers as weapons until both cars were knocked out of contention in Turn 3 coming to the checkered flag.
“Sometimes you get excited in the last few laps of the race and you try to make the most of it and guys got shoved a little too hard,” Poole said. “When the guys got shoved off the bottom, I just tried to fill the gaps the best I could.
“I thought the 7 (Justin Allgaier) was going to come down and get us, but he went right and I made it through and drove as hard as I could to the line.”
For the last decade, the journeyman racer from The Woodlands, Texas, has competed in a variety of Cup, Trucks and ARCA races but has run the lion’s share of event in the NASCAR Xfinity Series. This season, Poole has been running at the finish of every race with Alpha Prime—a testament to his consistency. Ultimately, Poole believes his time in the seat has paid off.
“This is my 10th year in one of the top three series, so I do have a lot of experience,” Poole said. “I think it helps me with knowing how these races will play out, so I can make better decisions.
“But I’ve got good people around me, too. Brandon Lines, my spotter, is William Byron’s spotter on Sunday and Ty Majeski’s in trucks. He did an awesome job tonight to help me make the right decisions with the choose (lane choice) and the traffic and keeping me patient. And Frank, I’ve got a veteran crew chief, too.
“So I think all of us together make a great team.”
Follow Lee Spencer on Twitter @CandiceSpencer or email her at [email protected].
