Tempers flared between NASCAR Xfinity drivers Jeb Burton and Sam Mayer during Saturday’s playoff race at Martinsville Speedway. The Jordan Anderson Racing driver even went ahead and shot Mayer through his car’s radio.
Spinning and clipping his left rear tire on Lap 92 of Stage 2, Burton triggered the fourth caution of the day after several side-by-side battles for track position. Despite not making the playoff roster, Burton was upset.
As reported by Jordan Bianchi of The Athletic, Burton told his team:
“Go ahead and tell 41 (Sam Mayer) he’s done. He’s done when I get to him. F*** him and his championship.”
Mayer, who entered the race seventh in the standings and 22 points below the cutoff line, needed to win to advance to Championship 4. But he was only able to secure a seventh place finish. Jeb Burton finished the race sixth, marking his eighth top 10 this season.
Taylor Gray, driver of the No. 54 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota, won the 250-lap event, followed by Sammy Smith, Brandon Jones, Sheldon Creed and Aric Almirola in the top five. Notably, it was Gray’s first career victory in the NASCAR Xfinity Series.
With the remaining two spots reserved for Jesse Love and Carson Kvapil, the field for the next championship race is now set. Scheduled for next Saturday, November 1, the 200-lap race will be televised on CW (starting at 7:30 p.m. ET) with live radio updates on MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
Jeb Burton’s return to Cup Series thwarted by ongoing NASCAR lawsuit
Jeb Burton was supposed to race in the YellaWood 500 at Talladega Superspeedway, but he couldn’t. This was all due to the ongoing antitrust lawsuit that 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports filed against NASCAR over its charter system.
It all started when team owners denied signing the latest charter agreement, arguing that NASCAR should end monopolistic practices while ending its classic cartel behavior. The final test is scheduled for December 1st. If the 23XI and the FRM lose, they will have to compete as open teams. If NASCAR loses, a decade-old business model will collapse.
“I was supposed to run this race today, I had everything signed and done,” Jeb Burton wrote on social media. “But this lawsuit situation made it very difficult for us to be able to compete in the race, so we backed off. Hopefully next year.”
Jeb Burton has only competed in six Cup Series races in the last nine years. His first full season in the Cup Series was in 2015, when he drove for the now-defunct Brad Keselowski Racing. His most recent Cup Series event was the 2024 Cup Series Championship 4 at Phoenix Raceway, where he finished 38th.
Edited by Tushhita Barua
