Poole Excels In Virginia; Sets Best Finish For Alpha Prime

Brennan Poole in action at Martinsville Speedway. (Scotte Sprinkle/Race Face Digital photo)

MARTINSVILLE, Va. – After a chaotic final lap Saturday night at Martinsville Speedway, Brennan Poole put Alpha Prime Racing further forward on the NASCAR Xfinity Series map than the team had ever been before.

Poole earned a fourth place finish in the Marine Corps 250, his best Xfinity Series finish since Kentucky Speedway in 2017 and his best finish since joining Alpha Prime at the beginning of last year.

While the result is incredible for both Poole and the team, the race did not start out well after a 29th-place qualifying effort. He kept getting better throughout the race, however, and was comfortably in the top 10 during the latter portion of the race after pitting for fresher tires on lap 178.

From there, it was a game of survival, after half of the race’s 14 caution flags occurred in the final 60 laps.

“Just [had] a really good car tonight,” the Woodlands, Texas, native said post-race. “I really love this place. I’ve got a lot of experience here [and] been good in late models here. I always enjoy coming to this place.

“We had a good car in the fall, but missed some strategy and needed some long runs. [We] came back with something similar and it was good all night,” Poole added. “I could get the car to cut in the middle and do what I wanted it to do. We started to play the tire strategy a bit at the end. [I] had a little bit fresher tires, not by much, but a little bit better for the end.

“It’s an awesome finish. Awesome result. [I’m] proud of everybody.”

The ending of the Marine Corps 250 was a near repeat of 2023’s playoff race, with nearly the entire field crashing off of turn four with the checkered flag in sight. The chaos was triggered when Sammy Smith turned Taylor Gray from the lead and the field compressed together, sending both Smith and Brandon Jones spinning exiting the final corner.

Poole was able to sneak by on the bottom beneath Smith and Jones, finishing in a three-wide battle at the finish line with Justin Allgaier and Sam Mayer.

“I saw guys getting shoved up off the bottom, which is what happens here, which is why I kept choosing the bottom on restarts,” Poole continued. “When they slid up, [it] was timed perfectly where I could roll up underneath them and was able to be three-wide across the line.”

Poole’s fourth-place run marks Alpha Prime Racing’s best Xfinity Series finish in team history. The organization co-owned by Caesar Bacarella and Tommy Joe Martins, both former drivers in their own rights, started as a near-backmarker team and has become one of the best mid-pack teams in the series.

That improvement is, in no small part, thanks to Poole’s consistent tenure with them.

“We’re down here at the end of pit road; there’s a lot going on,” Martins said after the race. “I’m really proud of this team. They brought an awesome car and Brennan drove a great, smart race.

“I expect every time we come here to get wrecked. It seems like that happened to a lot of guys, but Brennan stayed so calm during all of that,” Martins added. “I’m really proud of this entire group.”

The entire crew shared hugs and laughs on pit road and in the garage after the race. Then they all smoked cigars, a tradition for the team whenever they finish inside the top 10.

Perhaps most notable of all, Poole’s finish locked the No. 44 team into the Dash 4 Cash running at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway in two weeks’ time, alongside fellow series regulars Austin Hill (who won Saturday’s race at Martinsville), Sheldon Creed, and defending champion Justin Allgaier.

It’s the first time ever that Alpha Prime has had the opportunity to race for the $100,000 bonus check, a huge moment and opportunity for the organization as a whole.

“We have a quarter of the budget of everybody else, so that’s a huge opportunity for us,” Poole said. “Truthfully, I haven’t fully had time to digest that we’ll be able to do that just yet, but a hundred grand is a lot for us as a team and Bristol is a good track for me and for us as a team. I feel like, maybe, I’ll have another shot at running really well.

“We’re in it, so the goal is to go and have another day like this in a few weeks.”

The next race for Xfinity Series competitors is at Darlington (S.C.) Raceway for NASCAR’s annual throwback weekend, Saturday, April 5 at 3:30 p.m. ET, while the Dash 4 Cash resumes at Bristol during the SciAps 300 on Saturday, April 12 at 5 p.m. ET.

Both races will be broadcast live on The CW, the Motor Racing Network, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, channel 90.