Cigar City: Poole Shines With Another APR Top 10

BRISTOL, Tenn. – Alpha Prime Racing has had an exceptional year in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, especially with driver Brennan Poole, behind the wheel of the team’s flagship No. 44 Chevrolet.

That strength continued Friday night at Bristol Motor Speedway, as Poole achieved his fifth top-10 finish of the season and put his name in the headlines during the Xfinity Series playoff opener.

Poole is on track to break his own record for the best average finish in team history for a full-time driver, with a mark of 17.9 through 27 of 33 races. He has also set new records for the most top five and top 10 finishes by a single driver in the organization’s short five-year history.

Additionally, the team has another top five finish and two top 10s with its other regular driver this season in Parker Retzlaff. But Poole has been the overwhelming highest of highlights.

After a strong qualifying session on Friday afternoon, the No. 44 car started 18th. Though the driver was quiet during the early laps, as the sun set and the lights came on around the concrete oval, Poole began to make his move forward and climbed into the top 10 by the end of the second stage.

He earned valuable stage points by finishing ninth in stage two, and wasn’t done at that point.

Poole kept his head in the game for the remainder of the race, hovering just outside the top 10 before the final restart with 18 laps to go, in which the Texan shot past two playoff drivers in Brandon Jones and Austin Hill.

That led him to the 10th position, which he maintained all the way until the 300th circuit had been completed around ‘The Last Great Colosseum’.

“Just a really good night,” said Poole following his strong finish. “The guys (at APR) gave me a great car; they’ve been working hard all month. That’s five top 15 finishes for us in a row.”

The finish marked Poole’s third career Bristol top 10 and his first top 10 at the track in eight years, after finishing sixth in 2017 for the now-defunct Chip Ganassi Racing NASCAR program.

APR, a smaller organization, operates on a stricter budget than most of the larger teams on the Xfinity tour. Due to their lack of leased engines, simulator work, and other resources, it has been a significant boost for the group to compete against the top teams in the series and get the results they are getting.

“To accomplish what we’re accomplishing, we’re winning,” Poole added. “We’re beating a lot of guys that are spending four or five times as much money as we are. I think we’re getting the most out of it every single week, and we’re showing up prepared and all working hard regardless of the circumstances we’re in to get the best result possible. Everything just keeps going in the right direction.”

Poole and APR co-owner Tommy Joe Martins celebrated the result afterward by standing on top of the hauler and handing out cigars to crew members in honor of their top-10 finish. The tradition has been a long-standing practice for the team.

“Tires are expensive, but cigars are cheap,” Martins chuckled. “We’re not worried about buying cigars. I like where we’re at right now. I think everybody wants a little more.

“I think that’s pretty normal, and it’s really about the consistency of it, right? It’s just doing this more and more often that will get us where we ultimately want to be every week.”

Poole and the No. 44 team look to add another cigar outing to their docket, and steal a few points from the postseason contenders, when the Xfinity Series gears up for the second race of the playoffs at Kansas Speedway.

The Kansas Lottery 300 airs Saturday, Sept. 27, at 4 p.m. ET on The CW, the Motor Racing Network, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, channel 90.