0.084 seconds. That is how close Carson Kvapil came to winning before his teammate ended a 53-race winless streak instead. He made the last-lap pass on JR Motorsports teammate Carson Kvapil at Talladega, and the win was finally his. But Kvapil had led 67 of 94 laps, including 31 of the final 32, and he and Justin Allgaier are still fighting for a championship. Smith got the celebration. The final move carried consequences that reach well beyond the finish line.

“Sammy makes the move and wins the race. I would have rather the one or the seven to have gotten the bonus points. That can be true while also I can be happy that Sammy won the race. Both can exist,” Dale Earnhardt Jr. explained on the Dale Jr. Download podcast.

Smith’s last-lap pass at Talladega gave him a long-awaited victory, but it was not quite the finish Dale Jr. had hoped to see from his team. JR Motorsports had arrived with a clear strategy: drivers with little realistic chance of winning the championship were expected to help their title-contending teammates.

The championship standings explain why Dale Jr. was torn. Richard Childress Racing’s Jesse Love led the Chase heading into Talladega, with JRM driver Justin Allgaier 36 points behind in second. Kvapil was further back and needed a big result to close the gap.

After the race, Allgaier had reduced Love’s lead to 19 points, while Kvapil remained fifth, 59 points off the top. With only two races left, every position and stage point carried significant weight.

Smith, meanwhile, sat seventh in the standings, 108 points behind Love. He was still part of the championship field, but his deficit made a title push difficult with so little time remaining. Dale Jr. believed the team had to account for that reality when assigning roles. Instead of every driver chasing an individual result, those further down the standings were expected to help the contenders still fighting for the championship.

This was not the first time JR Motorsports had wrestled with how far its drivers should go to help one another. Earlier in the season, a late-race incident at Daytona involving Rajah Caruth, Carson Kvapil and Justin Allgaier prompted Dale Earnhardt Jr. to reconsider his hands-off approach.

He admitted that JRM had repeatedly hurt itself by letting drivers make their own decisions in the closing laps and suggested the team needed clearer expectations for working together. By Talladega, that shift had become more concrete, with drivers outside the main championship fight asked to help their title-contending teammates.

“Everybody’s going to have a specific role, and that will be determined by where you are in the Chase,” Dale Jr. said. Before the race, JRM had asked Smith and Rajah Caruth to support Allgaier and Kvapil. According to Dale Jr., both drivers had made sacrifices during the race, passing up opportunities to make their own moves so their teammates could stay in position and collect valuable stage points.

Corey Day also played a role in getting everyone on the same page. During a pre-race discussion, Day volunteered to run at the back of a line of six cars if that helped the group keep rival drivers from getting ahead. And there’s a valid reason behind it.

Hendrick Motorsports has a longstanding relationship with JR Motorsports, with Rick Hendrick serving as a co-owner of JRM alongside Dale Jr. and Kelley Earnhardt Miller. Hendrick Motorsports also provided engineering and chassis support to JRM when the team entered the O’Reilly Series.

For much of the race, the plan appeared to be working. Kvapil led 67 laps and collected 19 stage points, while Allgaier won Stage 2. But on the final lap, Smith got a run and made his move instead of helping Kvapil toward the checkered flag. Dale Jr. admitted he would have preferred the No. 8 to help the No. 1 win, though he recognized that Kvapil might have tried a hard block, potentially wrecking both cars.

Smith’s decision delivered a personal breakthrough. He snapped a 53-race winless streak in the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series and completed a remarkable Talladega weekend after winning the Truck Series race the night before. Dale Jr. was happy to see him rewarded for his effort, even if the result did not maximize JRM’s championship points.

That is the tension behind his “Both can exist” comment. He could celebrate Smith’s victory while wishing one of his title contenders had taken the bonus points. With JRM working alongside Hendrick-affiliated cars to challenge an RCR driver at the top of the standings, Talladega showed both the value and the limits of a shared team strategy.