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NASCAR legend and Hall of Famer Richard Petty recently shared his thoughts on the Xfinity Race finish at Martinsville. The King was amused and skeptical about the finish at the US Marine Corps 250, which saw a multi-car wreck on the final corner as Austin Hill won in overtime.
Petty is a seven-time world champion and won a record 200 NASCAR Cup Series races. Yet, the former owner admitted not seeing something as 'wild' as the race on March 29 at the Martinsville Speedway. The US Marine Corps 250 had 14 cautions and three in the final ten laps, as Austin Hill managed to escape the last lap chaos and win the race.
Fans and drivers alike have questioned the reckless racing on display at the short track, as Petty joined them in voicing his concerns. He was joined by his former crew chief, Dale Inman, in the Petty Family Racing podcast, where a fan asked his perspective on the Martinsville finish. The former NASCAR champion answered:
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"It's unreal. You had the fourth, fifth, sixth place car winds up winning a race on the last lap—something’s going on. It looked like a bowling alley. You had all these guys up there in the front, and somebody bowled a ball through and knocked them all out of the way. That was one of the wildest finishes I’ve ever seen.” (10:48 onwards)
Petty's analogy captures the absurd ending of the 250-lap race at the 0.5-mile speedway. Race leaders Sammy Smith and Taylor Gray executed the 'bump and run' maneuver on each other, throughout the final stage.
As they battled their way to the final corner, after the restart with two laps to go, Smith made contact with Gray's #54 Chevrolet who was leading. Gray spun into the wall as Justin Allgaier turned Smith. As Hill went past the chequered flag, a multi-car wreck saw eight cars crash past the finish line.
Richard Petty's former crew chief weighed in on the Martinsville finish
NASCAR Hall of Famer, Dale Inman hosted the podcast for Richard Petty. He also echoed Petty's sentiments on Hill, running fifth at the time of the wreck, taking the low line to get his first victory of the 2025 Xfinity Series.
"Yeah, some good cars got eliminated and a good car won the race, don't get me wrong, but he was running long. They just opened the door and he went through it," added Inman. (11:18 onwards)
While Smith managed to finish tenth, Gray was caught up behind the wreck and ended up 29th despite leading the race for 87 laps. The race has drawn extreme criticism from former and current racers as careless driving diminished the quality of racing and disrupted the race.
Earlier, Richard Petty's son and former Cup Series driver, Kyle Petty was also critical of the young racers for lacking respect. The comments raise an important question of drawing a line between aggressive and reckless driving in stock car racing.
