Playoff Power: JRM Title Drive Sees Good Tracks, Trends

September 22, 2025

MOORESVILLE, N.C. (Sept. 22, 2025) – The NASCAR Xfinity Series Playoffs resume this weekend on the Plains at Kansas Speedway, and JR Motorsports used the week off to rest, revamp and get back after a second straight NXS championship.

Following the last race at Bristol Motor Speedway on Sept. 12, JRM’s Connor Zilisch holds the points lead by 32 over Justin Allgaier, with Carson Kvapil fourth (-69) and Sammy Smith 12th, just seven points out of 11th after one race.

Of the remaining events that will determine the series champion, JRM has at least one victory on every track, including Kansas. Noah Gragson won there in 2022 for the team’s lone win on the 1.5-mile oval.

Following Kansas, the teams will travel just down the road to Charlotte Motor Speedway for the annual event on the Roval having won the last two events there (Sam Mayer, both years).

Of the rest, JRM has earned three victories at Martinsville Speedway and four wins each at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Talladega Superspeedway and Phoenix Raceway, site of the championship race on Nov. 1.

At Las Vegas the following week, Justin Allgaier looks to sweep the season at the track he won at back in March, and it’s also the site of the team’s first career victory (March 1, 2008, Mark Martin). Josh Berry won twice there in 2021 and 2022, the first subbing for an injured Michael Annett and the second for the No. 8 team in the NXS Playoffs.

At Talladega, Sammy Smith returns as the defending race winner after taking a wild event on the big oval last fall. Regan Smith won there for JRM in 2013, while Elliott Sadler (2016) and Gragson (2022) complete the list of JRM winners in the state of Alabama.

Martinsville, the final race before the Championship 4 is settled, has seen plenty of action involving JRM cars, with Allgaier clinching his spot in the Championship 4 with a win in dramatic fashion in 2023 following a huge pileup on the penultimate restart. Last year, Allgaier finished fifth on the way to his first NXS championship a week later at Phoenix. JRM’s two other victories at Martinsville came in 2021 with Berry in the spring and Gragson in the fall.

At Phoenix, Allgaier has two of the team’s four victories, having won in 2017 and 2019. The 2017 triumph was his first with JRM as well. Last season, the Illinois native overcame a series of unfortunate events to claim his first series championship at the desert oval after taking the checkered flag in the runner-up position.