Kvapil delivers clutch performance at Martinsville to keep O'Reilly Series championship hopes alive

Carson Kvapil book-ended Saturday’s Halloween evening at Martinsville Speedway, leading early and leading late to claim his third NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series victory of the season – and of his career – in the National Debt Relief 250.

It was clutch performance for the 23-year-old North Carolinian, who won the pole position and led the most laps on the day – 121 of 250 – in the No. 1 JR Motorsports Chevrolet to keep himself very much in the championship conversation heading to Homestead-Miami Speedway next week for the season finale.

Ultimately, Kvapil had to hold off his JRM teammate,Justin Allgaier for the win, taking the trophy by .434s over Allgaier, who leaves Virginia the new championship leader by 22 points over Richard Childress Racing’s Jesse Love.

Hendrick Motorsports rookie Corey Day was third, joining those three drivers atop the standings and positioning themselves for a thrilling season finale to decide the title.

Allgaier leads Love by 22 points, with Day 23 points back and Kvapil now 31 points out. Haas Factory Team driver Sheldon Creed finished sixth at Martinsville – good enough to keep him in the championship mix. He’s ranked fifth, 42 points behind Allgaier.

“It’s awesome, I knew in practice we had a very fast Chevrolet,’’ said Kvapil, who earned his, and crew chief Rodney Childers, first Martinsville win. “Able to qualify on pole, but just kinda had a rough race between the end of stage one and the end of the race there, just kept getting shuffled back.

“But it just really worked out. Just super excited. Winning is always great, but finally getting one at a track I feel like I’m good at is really cool.’’

The series’ championship leader coming into the race, Richard Childress Racing’s Love endured a tough night all night. Getting caught on pit road immediately behind an incident cost him positions mid-race, then a tire rub forced him to limp and persevere through Stage 2, where he finished 22nd and was forced to play catch up. Finally, his car suffered brake trouble with 30 laps to go, crashing and bringing out the race’s 12th and final caution. He finished 30th, dropping him from the lead into second place in the championship.

“Nothing really to process. I feel like I’ve got a good idea of where it started to unravel and what did us in, and all the bad stuff and good stuff that happened in between along the way,’’ the reigning NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series champion Love said.

“I’m not really going to study too much about today, it really doesn’t matter. We have obviously one goal and probably, for the most part, only one avenue, one way to achieve that goal, and it brings me a lot of clarity.

“It means unless the [number] seven [Allgaier] has a DNF at Homestead, we’ve got to go and win the race. Obviously, that’s where we do our best work in moments like that.’’

Allgaier, whose 52 laps led Saturday were second only to his teammate Kvapil, is the defending race winner at the 1.5-mile Homestead-Miami Speedway, where the series goes next weekend to settle the championship.

“I think that last set of tires we had to push really hard to get through the field and those cautions didn’t help us out,’’ said Allgaier, noting the six cautions and a nearly 12 minute long red flag in the final 105-lap run.

As for next week, he smiled and said, “I love the fact we have five [cars] going into Homestead with a shot to be champion. It’s going to make for a great battle. I feel like our team does a really great job. We won there last year. We know how to get around the race track and we know we’ll have speed, we just have to execute.

“If we do all the things we’ve been doing and execute the way we know we can we keep the points lead.’’

Joe Gibbs Racing driver Brandon Jones finished fourth followed by Haas Factory teammates Sam Mayer and Creed. JR Motorsports’ Sammy Smith was seventh with Joe Gibbs Racing’s William Sawalich, Brent Crews and Taylor Gray rounding out the top 10.

The series heads south to Homestead-Miami Speedway next Saturday for the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series Championship Race (5 p.m. ET, The CW, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

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