Heading into Thursday’s Blue-Emu Maximum Pain Relief 200 at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway, defending race-winner Zane Smith is safely locked into the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series playoffs with two wins already this season.
With victories at Daytona Int’l Speedway and Circuit of The Americas in the bag, along with his recent track history at the half-mile paper clip, Smith feels he and the No. 38 Front Row Motorsports team are in a great position.
“I wish we had a few more stage wins, and just stage points in general. I feel like we’d really be able to approach these races a lot differently,” Smith said. “But being locked in, has been awesome. It not only boosts my confidence, but really my whole team. It’s just a lot of fun we’re having, each and every week, so we’re just trying to enjoy that.”
The big key for Thursday night’s short-track clash at the .525-mile track, is managing the amount of chaos that can occur during the 200-lap event.
But Smith noted that this race being early in the season as opposed to being during the playoffs, may impact the way drivers race.
“It’s a little bit different Martinsville now,” Smith said. “Since we’re still early in the year, you don’t really want to make enemies. This isn’t now the final transfer race to get to the final four.”
Martinsville has been known for last-lap drama, including Smith’s at-the-buzzer victory last season when he used the bumper of his Kyle Busch Motorsports entry to move former Front Row Motorsports driver Todd Gilliland while racing to the white flag.
A recurring theme at any short track has been what the line is for what’s considered clean racing and what is considered to be overly aggressive.
“I feel like each and every single one of us have known what moving someone the right way versus wrecking somebody is,” Smith said. “I feel like we’ve known that since we were 12 years old at our first short track. A few of us are pretty good at measuring that out, and then some are absolutely awful at measuring that out. The guys that are awful, obviously, it’s in our head that we’re going to treat you how we’re treated, and vice versa to the guys who do it the right way.”
Though the Truck race at Martinsville moved from late in the season last year to the first third of the schedule this year, Smith joked about the change still being strategic for NASCAR.
“I see what NASCAR was trying to do though, putting it still right after a road course, where we all still get into each other, so we all go into it pissed off,” he said.