Chandler Smith rolled the dice at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in the NASCAR Xfinity Series race but came up short.
The No. 81 Joe Gibbs Racing driver was looking to better his third-place finish in the 2023 spring race at the famed “Diamond in the Desert.”
“The No. 81 team has good momentum coming off top-fives the past two weeks. I feel confident there,” said the Talking Rock, Georgia native entering the race.
Going into The LiUNA NASCAR Xfinity Series Race, the Quick Tie Toyota GR Supra driver would start the race in the second position.
Grabbing the lead on the first lap, Smith would lead 45 laps and win Stage 1, scoring the first playoff point of 2024 by a driver that was not a Richard Childress Racing driver.
Coming to pit road at the end of the stage, the Toyota GR Supra driver would tell the team that he was a little bit snug running the seam in Turns 1 and 2.
The team would send him back onto the track with new Goodyear tires and fuel.
“Manage what you are doing here. Don’t change anything,” crew chief Jeff Meendering would remind the young driver.
With a little bit of trouble getting out of his pit box, Smith would start Stage 2 from the seventh position.
Working his way through the field, Smith would work his way back up to second place by Lap 61. He would remain there pacing himself through the remainder of Stage 2 until Lap 89 when he would pass the No. 20 Toyota of his teammate John Hunter Nemechek on the most important lap of the stage and net the Stage 2 win.
Sweeping the first two stages of the race, Smith was confident that he had a very fast car. Bringing his Toyota Supra down the pit road for another set of tires and Sunoco fuel, he would return to the top spot of the track to start Stage 3.
Battling the No. 20 Toyota of Nemechek, the Joe Gibbs Racing driver informed his team, “I guess we’re going to sit on each other’s doors halfway through the race.”
The team replied, “He knows it’s just a matter of time, so take care of it there.”
All that would change when the caution flag came out on Lap 123, and the team brought their driver to pit road for four tires, fuel, and an air adjustment of three-tenths of a pound.
By the time they had reached Lap 166 and were coming in for his green flag pit stop, the clearly frustrated driver communicated to the team that he had no lateral grip and that they had given him too much on the right rear.
Giving him his last set of tires and fuel and making another air adjustment, Smith would cycle back onto the track but would hear a sizeable popping noise, and the car seemed to free up too
much for the driver’s preference.
Smith held on for third, scoring his third consecutive top-five finish of the year.
“After I heard the popping noise, we never recovered from it,” offered Smith after the race. “(We) was wicked, wicked free after that, especially in the rubber.”
A visibly frustrated Smith added, “We just over-adjusted a little bit. We tried to stay ahead of the racetrack. I feel like the track definitely freed up, and we went in that same direction, thinking it was going to tighten up.
“You live, and you learn, but I’m extremely proud of the effort that we brought here this weekend. We were pretty dominant, and we just over adjusted.”
Currently second in NASCAR Xfinity Series points, next up for Chandler Smith is the Call 811.com Every Dig. Every Time 200 at Phoenix Raceway on Saturday, March 9th, 2024, at 4:30 pm ET.
Follow Grace Krenrich on Twitter @grace3140 or email at [email protected]
