By: Zach Catanzareti, Staff Writer
With plenty of change in effect in the NASCAR XFINITY Series, Tommy Joe Martins is one driver who knows the difficulties of just keeping up with it all.
Driving for BJ McLeod Motorsports, 2018 has seen the Mississippian increase his seat time from last year, thus far running 10 of 14 XFINITY races in the Nos. 8 and 78 Chevrolets. With prior starts in the Camping World Truck Series, joining his experience as an owner, Martins approaches the sport with multiple perspectives and plenty of experience.
“I say I’m a veteran, I kind of feel like I’m a veteran,” Martins, 31, told Kickin’ The Tires. “It feels like I haven’t been around that long.”
But he has.
Making his Truck debut in 2009, Martins ran 28 races in the series with a best finish of 15th at Michigan in 2016. His jump to XFINITY in 2014 was also under family ownership (running 11 races that season) but partnered with current owner BJ McLeod for another part-time campaign last year. The relationship is 19 races in and has seen improvement year-over-year.
“I was hoping we’d be a top-30 team, that’s how I thought going into it,” he said of 2018. “Really, we’ve been a top-25 team. In the owner’s standings, we’re 24th and 26th. We overshot what we thought, probably 12 positions to where we were last year. That’s a dramatic improvement from one year to the next.”
With an average finish of 24.9 through 10 starts, Martins and BJM eye that next step in the underdog race every Saturday.
“Jeremy Clements, Ryan Sieg, what was JGL, that next pack in front of us, another step of growth I’d like to see us make,” he said. “You’re contending for top 10s at that point.”
Though lacking TV time, this mid-pack battle for position is what matters for teams like BJM, whose goals lay in the top 20 each week. It’s the “race within the race” that many may not notice.
“Joey Gase got mad at me a couple weeks ago with how I raced him at Charlotte,” he said. “It’s all good now but he said, ‘Man, I feel you race me so hard when you get around me.’ He’s a barometer for us. I know if we’re close to you, we’re having a good day and shot at a top 15 on speed.”
Equipment is the name of the game for Martins, who feels his job security rests on his ability to keep cars in one piece consistently. A positive of this ability is running more races. The negative? Sometimes, you can’t take those necessary risks on track.
“It’s the money-maker for this team. The equipment that’s sitting in this hauler,” he said. “This is how they get to the next race, this is how they pay everyone every week. It matters. That frustrates you every once in a while when you cant be quite as risky. You have to think in the long game.
“My car, it’s the same car we’ve run in eight of the 10 races this year. How can you make it better when you’re turning around and running it every week? There are times you just race your guts out and you go for it. When you have a shot at a good finish, BJ takes the gloves off. He’s not afraid to do that. But he’s also smart.”
With the kind of work ethic Martins showcases, there’s a level of respect that is given from each small team to the next. Martins understands the daily fight and respects drivers who join him in that daily grind, including Canadian rookie and Pinty’s Series champion Alex Labbe.
“Respect is a mutual thing,” he said. “Alex is a Canadian champion. If you cant respect that then you’re not watching those races. I’m going to give respect until I’m not given it back.”
With a fairly split field in the XFINITY Series — large Cup teams like Joe Gibbs Racing and small XFINITY-only teams like BJM — Martins maintains the respect to the large teams, however, feels a certain contrary vibe from them while on track.
“I’m directing this toward the other side of the garage: Just because I’m in a small car that doesn’t mean I’m a bad driver,” he said. “It’s just a small team, there are limitations.
“I respect the hell out of them. I think Austin Cindric is a good driver. I don’t care he’s had bad luck, I still think he’s a good driver. But they view our team as just being in the way. I’ve gotten that vibe from the other side of the garage that we’re just interfering with their race. Dude, I’m racing for something, too, man. I’m trying to get out here and improve this team. In doing that, maybe I improve my stock in the garage and get a better opportunity further down the road. We’re all racing for something.”
With plate racing running consecutive races at Pocono and Michigan (each with contrastive results), the last couple weeks have shifted small teams’ chances against faster cars. Many drivers have spoken out on the changes, including Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series driver Brad Keselowski, who said that talent will “deteriorate” if the sport heads down a plate racing future.
Martins disagrees.
“I don’t believe that [laughs]. I don’t think anyone is going anywhere,” he said. “We’ll complain but nobody is going anywhere. If you’re a part of this, you wanted to be a part of NASCAR.”
However, Martins himself felt the difference at Pocono and Michigan. The cars are “easier to drive” and the plates “take the wheel out of your hands” in terms of the driver making the difference. With this in mind, Martins knows when to put his foot down.
“At a plate track, you’re not in control of your racecar. Any time you take that away, it’s frustrating,” he said. “I don’t think it’s necessarily a good idea to turn every 1.5-mile track into a plate race. That oversaturates it.
“I applaud them for trying things. I’ve been a supporter of what they’re trying to do, I’m just a little leery of the direction we’re going.”
Martins believes that NASCAR should be the separator between the top drivers to the lowest.
“I think that’s what NASCAR is shooting for with this package… it’s just not working out like that,” he said. “Kyle Busch is still 1.5 seconds faster than me. For the first time, I can 100 percent know that has absolutely nothing to do with his driver skill compared to mine. We are all just wide-open the whole way around here. His car is just 1.5 seconds faster than mine.
“Is Kyle Busch a better driver than me? Well, yeah probably so [laughs], he probably is. But that’s not why he’s 1.5 seconds faster than me. I think they wanted to close that up — it hasn’t really done that.”
How can you level the playing field? By turning it to driver skill. Which may sound odd for a small team, where tougher cars could lead to more struggle. That may not be the case, however, said Martins.
“The way you close the gap and make it more a driver-skill thing, you just have to make the cars harder to drive,” he said. “That’s going to mean more horsepower and less downforce. Well, that’s the opposite of what we’re doing right now. We’re restricting horsepower and adding downforce, adding drag and making it a lot easier to drive.
“The more horsepower you have, the less important each horsepower is. If you have 1,050 horsepower and I have 1,000, that’s not nearly as big a difference as if you 750 and I have 700. That’s what you’re seeing now and it will lead to a bigger separation. You’re making that a bigger spread whereas to opening things up more would really allow more parity in that sense.
“It sounds weird to say. Why would you want them to have more? But if we’re all making a lot of horsepower then at least it won’t matter quite as much.”
In the last year, the XFINITY cars have challenged Martins in a way unique to the Truck Series. Racing top Cup teams, drivers like Kevin Harvick and Joey Logano and hitting some of the country’s top circuits have made Martins “the best he’s ever been” in terms of driving ability. But despite the broadened skill set already, Martins wants a more dynamic schedule to open the XFINITY Series to an untapped market.
“The schedule in XFINITY needs a shake-up, a lot of people agree,” he said. “I don’t see the point of a development series going to tracks more than once. There are some places that can really use a NASCAR race. I think about Memphis Motorsports Park, Milwaukee Mile, some places we have opportunities to go. I just go, ‘Man, that’s a waste. That’s a really nice facility sitting there and there’s no racing going on.’
“I think NASCAR has the power to re-energize the market.”
The plethora of mile-and-a-halves, mixed with the apparent plate racing era in 2018, makes Martins further appreciate the classic short tracks. Martins next hits Iowa Speedway this weekend where the series will return to what “appeals to everyone” in motor racing.
“The fun of a short track is still that NASCAR appeal which is, ‘I have to manage my equipment, manage the brakes, manage rear tires, front tires,'” he said. “As much as we say that you’re all-out every lap, there is still a penalty for overdoing that. There’s a lot more dynamic there that the drivers and teams really enjoy.
“And for the fan, let’s get it down to the simple facts: You can see the whole track. Right there in front of you, all the action is a lot closer, the cars are a lot closer because there’s not as much room. So many more benefits for everyone involved.”
The 7/8th-mile Iowa gave Martins his best-career NASCAR finish of 11th last summer. And from there, Martins plans to run more than 20 races in 2018 for BJM, including his first for the team on a road course at Watkins Glen in August.
“I’m skipping Chicago, Kentucky, and then a little stretch after that I’ll be in it after that,” he said. “We’ll see how the schedule will shake out. I’ve heard Indianapolis, Darlington, some cool ones I’m looking forward to.”
Racing up front is always Goal No. 1 for a racecar driver. But Martins has the perspective that breeds improvement for small teams, who judge positivity over the health of their equipment. Martins has finished every race in 2018 and hopes the streak will continue for the remainder of the season.
“I understand my place on the team,” he said. “My job is to keep the car in the points, keep it in one piece and try to improve the team to where we’re more attractive to a sponsor or funded driver down the road. I’m going to get to race as much as I can but in the end, it’s about the health of the team.”
(Below is a video capture of our interview with Tommy Joe Martins)
