In the closing moments of the Marine Corps 250 at Martinsville Speedway, chaos erupted as Sammy Smith retaliated against Taylor Gray in Turn 3 of the final lap, triggering a multi-car pileup on the frontstretch. The historic Virginia short track, known for its paper-clip shape and tight-quarters racing, had already seen 14 cautions before that final-lap melee allowed Austin Hill to sneak through from sixth position to claim victory. The lack of respect and careless attitude of the drivers drew some fiery reactions from the likes of Denny Hamlin and Dale Jr.

Hamlin took to X and wrote, “Absolute garbage,” and proposed that NASCAR should bring new changes to keep the drivers in line. “The sanctioning body needs to get involved a little bit and step in on egregious things.” NASCAR has dropped the hammer on such incidents, such as Bubba Wallace’s act in Las Vegas or Austin Dillon’s last-lap chaos in Richmond last year. So, Hamlin’s demands weren’t something new. However, Brad Keselowski saw this through a different lens and put the onus on team owners to keep their drivers in check.

“The solution needs to come from the car owners, not NASCAR. Until the car owners are willing to park their drivers for getting this out of control, very little will change.” He wrote on X. For Brad Keselowski, now wearing both driver and owner hats as co-owner of RFK Racing, this wasn’t just another short track dustup – it represented a systematic failure of team ownership to maintain control over their drivers.

The post-race carnage at Martinsville showcased exactly what happens when accountability breaks down – damaged equipment, compromised competition, and a spectacle that veers from hard racing toward demolition derby. What began with Gray bumping Smith out of the way and coming to the white flag escalated when Smith retaliated, collecting multiple cars in the process. For Keselowski, this isn’t just about NASCAR officials making calls; it’s about the people who sign the checks taking back control of their investments.

“I think it’s entirely feasible for the owners to get their drivers under control,” Keselowski stated bluntly when asked about his social media comments following the Xfinity Series race. “It’s in their best interest. At the end of the day, who paid the bill on Saturday night’s race? All the car owners – not NASCAR, not the drivers.”

The 2012 Cup Series champion didn’t just criticize; he offered a roadmap. “If I was a car owner in the Xfinity Series after that race was over, I would have grabbed four or five other car owners and said ‘I’m not blaming you, I’m not blaming anybody, but we need to get together and we need to set a standard of expectations for our drivers,'” Keselowski explained. His point cuts to the heart of NASCAR’s team structure – while drivers like Smith and Gray get the headlines for their last-lap drama, it’s owners like Richard Childress (whose team ironically claimed victory with Hill) who absorb the financial impact when races devolve into wreck fest.

Brad Keselowski pointed to history as evidence that his suggestion isn’t just theoretical. “If you back up to why that scenario was not a problem 20-30 years ago, there was kind of a soft understanding of all the car owners that if our drivers tore up our stuff, we would take action and move on,” he added. But given that rookie drivers come up with sponsorship money, will the teams take hard calls like benching them? Jack Roush did it back in 2010 with Ricky Stenhouse Jr.; back then, the driver wrecked the car in four of the first 10 races and was benched for a race or two. And that is the kind of culture Keselowski feels should be embedded in the team competing in the Xfinity Series.

The RFK Racing co-owner’s comments highlight a fundamental concept he called “agency” – the practice of controlling your own destiny. “If I’m the car owners and I’m the one who gets stuck with the bill Saturday night, I’m not looking at NASCAR, I’m probably looking at myself and saying what do I have to do to fix this situation,” Keselowski emphasized, suggesting collective action among owners is the path forward.

The Martinsville race perfectly illustrated the problem Brad Keselowski identified. Throughout the 250-lap event, 14 cautions consumed 104 yellow flag laps – almost 40% of the race running under yellow. Multiple incidents stemmed from retaliatory driving, including William Sawalich spinning Connor Zilisch through Turns 3 and 4 after earlier contact and, ultimately, Smith’s race-deciding retaliation against Gray that opened the door for Hill’s unlikely victory.

NASCAR’s team structure has transformed dramatically over the decades. Where once the team owner was the unquestioned authority figure who might work directly alongside mechanics in the garage, today’s NASCAR landscape features more corporate ownership structures with multiple stakeholders. As detailed in NASCAR literature, today’s teams employ specialized roles including team managers, crew chiefs, and various technical specialists – creating distance between owners and day-to-day operations.

The path forward, in Keselowski’s view, requires collective action among owners who ultimately share the same financial interests – protecting their equipment while maintaining the hard-nosed competition that makes NASCAR compelling. For the time being, NASCAR stepped in with a points penalty to just Sammy Smith, along with a fine.

NASCAR takes the easy way out again

Intentional wrecking has led to suspension of the driver,s and fans were hoping for a similar treatment after Smith’s egregious actions at Martinsville. But the sanctioning body let everyone down as they announced the penalties for last weekend’s action. Smith was docked 50 points from the driver’s standings along with $25,000 fine.

“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.” Xfinity Series Managing Director Eric Peterson said via NASCAR.

Well, NASCAR stuck by the precedent of not suspending a driver for intentional wrecking. Remember, Austin Cindric was also let off the hook with a 50-point penalty and $50,000 fine. The thing is, with the new playoff waiver rule, NASCAR doesn’t want to snatch away a driver’s ability to score points in the regular season. With the new rule, if the driver is suspended for a race, they will have to forfeit all the playoff points they’ve earned in the regular season. Ideally, they wanted drivers to keep themselves in check by not missing the race or causing a ruckus, but it looks like this plan has backfired on them.