Sammy Smith Slammed With Huge Penalty For Wrecking Taylor Gray During The NASCAR Xfinity Series Martinsville Race

NASCAR has docked JR Motorsports driver 50 driver points and fined him $25,000 for a much-criticized move he made at the end of the Xfinity Series race at Martinsville Speedway on Saturday.

Smith was chasing down leader Taylor Gray when he came from way behind to slam him into the wall entering turn three.

Smith got himself out of sorts and was hit by Justin Allgaier, which allowed Austin Hill to dive to the inside and take the win.

While the “bump and run” is a common move on short tracks, including Martinsville, the egregiousness of Smith’s move drew immediate ire from fans and other drivers, ensuring that NASCAR officials would give it a close look. He was cited for intentionally wrecking another vehicle and actions detrimental to the sport.

Smith has not yet commented on the penalty, but JR Motorsports said that it would not appeal the decision. The loss of points from the race plus the penalty dropped him from 215 points and sixth in the standings to 165 points and 13th after seven races.

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“We want to see really hard racing and door-to-door racing, and contact is certainly a part of the sport and part of the sport at Martinsville Speedway,” Eric Peterson, Xfinity Series Managing Director told NASCAR.com.

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“We felt like after looking at all the facts, all the video, the team audio, SMT data and all the tools, we have to work with and review an incident like that. Unfortunately, what Sammy did was over the line and something that we feel like we had to react to. We would prefer to leave it in the driver’s hands but in this case, it wasn’t really a racing move and we reacted to it as such.”