MARTINSVILLE, Va. -- AJ Allmendinger finished second and Austin Dillon finished fourth Sunday at Martinsville Speedway. Those finishes alone would likely give both those drivers reason to smile.
But the stories behind those STP 500 finishes show growth by both drivers and their teams.
Allmendinger has had so many races in which he runs well for the first two-thirds of the event and something happens to ruin the day. He makes a mistake. The team makes a mistake.
For a driver coming from the open-wheel ranks where races usually take less time, it often appeared that maybe the 500-mile or 500-lap events just weren't in Allmendinger's wheelhouse.
But after running strong all day at Martinsville, it showed that Allmendinger could put 500 laps together.
"I feel like we've been at our best at the end of the races," Allmendinger said. "If we just maximize our finishes, whether they're top-5 or you're running 20th and you can get 18th out of it, that's what you have to do. ... I've really felt like the last four races we've been able to put together whole races."
Allmendinger has a new crew chief this season as Randall Burnett came from his chief engineer role for Kyle Larson to the JTG Daugherty Racing team. Ernie Cope came from JR Motorsports to serve as competition director.
"AJ gets around here great and this is one of his favorite places to come and it's one of my favorite places," Burnett said. "We had a great weekend. ... We've had fast cars all year long. We finally put one all together."
Allmendinger improved seven spots in the standings to 12th.
"There's a good vibe around the team," Allmendinger said. "It's fun to be at the race shop. It's fun to be at the race track with the guys. Everybody seems a little bit more energetic."
While Allmendinger had a solid car all weekend. Dillon did not.
Dillon was 28th in the first practice Friday and then qualified 29th. He wasn't much better Saturday morning as he was 30th in the first practice Saturday and then 24th in happy hour. And in 10-lap average, he was 21st overall in happy hour. It didn't appear he had a car to do anything Sunday and a top-20 finish, not a top-5, should have been the goal.
To turn that car into a fourth-place finish shows what his Richard Childress Racing team could get done. He used Paul Menard's setup, and then raced with his teammate -- with them trading plenty of shoves with their cars -- throughout.
"It feels really great," Dillon said. "I feel like when you go through something like we did -- I was pretty much distraught Friday and qualifying 29th because we hadn't been that bad all year.
"We put a lot of focus into qualifying here and talked about where I messed up previous races and I just kind of backed it up and messed it up again. I went home and talked to myself a little bit, came back on Saturday, regrouped and we decided to work on my car and work on me."
Menard came over and shook Dillon's hand afterward. They both didn't have nice things to say about each other on their in-car radios during the race but Dillon didn't seem too concerned about heat-of-the-moment anger.
"We worked it out on the track," Dillon said. "I probably overreacted. I was racing AJ, trying to race him clean, and I kept bumping [Menard] and I was in the middle of a sandwich there. It's Martinsville. ... We'll work it out.
"I have to thank his effort this weekend because we used his setup. That was pretty big -- [that] setup helped us a bunch. All good there."
Xfinity: Time to get back to work
The Xfinity Series comes back from a two-week hiatus to race at Texas Motor Speedway, and it will be the time the competition will find out if it any team has truly caught Joe Gibbs Racing, which has dominated the early part of the season with three victories.
It will be the only intermediate track the Xfinity Series competes on until May 28 at Charlotte. So Friday will be a prime opportunity for a team to test some new theories or new pieces and have time to implement them -- or discard them -- before the next applicable race.
Trucks: Another Kyle win
Kyle Busch won the truck race at Martinsville Speedway and he said he plans to do about three or for more this year.
Why? Well there's a reason beyond wins.
"This is essentially just to make sure and to verify and confirm that our stuff is good enough and capable enough for the drivers that are racing in it in order to win," Busch said. "That's essentially why I run some truck races throughout the year, just to kind of go to some different venues and make sure our stuff is good.
"So far, so good."
Finishing second at Martinsville was John Hunter Nemechek, the Atlanta winner and now points leader by three over Parker Kligerman. Nemechek, though, still does not have a sponsor for upcoming races and his team hopes to be able to keep piecing things together to continue through the season.
Nemechek said he had some small sponsors where he would have gotten a bonus if he won Martinsville, so he was hoping they still might come through with the extra dough.
"It is still up in the air," Nemechek said. "There is nothing done right now for Kansas [next month]. ... We have some deals that could get done. It's just trying to get everything done to get their name on the hood."