April 2025 NASCAR future star of the month: Sammy Smith

Gabriel Tsui
11 hours ago
6 min read

Written by Gabriel Tsui, Edited by Aaron Carroll

Welcome back to our series of NASCAR future star of the month, where we introduce a young driver who has been lighting up the junior ranks of NASCAR. We’ll give a brief history of the driver, list out what they achieved in the past month and what their future holds for them.

There are a few rules to this series, as to who qualifies as a future star. To qualify as a future star, these drivers must be 1) Under 25 years old, so unfortunately for drivers such as Anthony Alfredo and Tanner Gray, wouldn’t qualify as a future star; and 2) holds a full-time seat in the national series (Trucks and Xfinity), unless they are under 18-years-old and therefore restricted to ARCA.

In this month, there were quite a few guys lighting it up, such as JR Motorsports’ Carson Kvapil and AM Racing’s Harrison Burton. But looking across the board, this young star simply could not be ignored. So without further ado, for the month of April, we have picked JR Motorsports’ Sammy Smith!

Early beginnings in Late models

Born in 2004, Smith began his racing career at the age of eight, racing go karts and later in CARS Tour. He debuted in 2019, competing in the Late Model Stocks, finishing top-five in five of his six starts and top-ten in every race. Smith then moved to the Super Late Model Tour in 2020, competing the full season with Kyle Busch Motorsports, finishing third place in the championship.

In 2021, Smith signed with Joe Gibbs Racing to compete in the initial five races in ARCA East. In his ARCA debut, Smith lost a photo finish in New Smyrna for second place, but went on to win two straight races in Five Flags and Nashville Fairgrounds.

He scored a fourth place finish in his first appearance at an intermediate track at Dover, then took his third win of the season in Southern National, before scoring his only DNF ever in ARCA East in Iowa. He closed off the season with a fifth place in Milwaukee and a second place in Bristol, securing the ARCA East championship in his rookie season.

In the 2022 season, Smith moved to KBM for both ARCA and ARCA East. In ARCA East, Smith dominated the series with five wins, including two wins in the joint races of Milwaukee and Bristol. Finishing outside of the top-two only once, and finishing within the top-five in every race.

In ARCA Menards, he was originally expected to run the full year, but age restrictions meant he had to miss the initial five races apart from Phoenix, where it was a joint race between the main series and ARCA West. Throughout the ARCA season, Smith only finished outside the top-three four times and outside the top-five once with six wins, including a back-to-back-to-back win streak to finish the season, finishing fourth in the final championship.

After the aforementioned domination in ARCA and multiple great performances in the Xfinity Series, Smith was called up to Xfinity in 2023 for his first full-time season in a national series, racing for JGR’s No.18 and paired alongside John Hunter Nemechek.

A strong start in Xfinity

After three consecutive finishes within the top-20 to kick off his rookie season, Smith and the No.18 team arrived at Phoenix for his fourth race of his rookie season. After two strong stages of racing - securing third and fourth in stages one and two respectively - he came back out to challenge for the lead in the stage three restart.

Running fourth place on the restart, the leaders went four wide into turn one before Smith found a huge run down the back straight to take second place, with his former boss Kyle Busch in his sights. A few laps later, heading down into turn one, Smith stayed low and cashed in on his tyre grip, taking the lead.

Following a caution with 62 laps to go and a slow stop by his crew, the 18-year-old found himself back in fourth place on the restart. That didn’t last long, as a rapid restart sent Smith right back into the lead, and that was the end of it.

Despite a flurry of cautions and restarts coming up, the high school senior drove himself into a commanding lead and never relinquished it again. Smith took the checkered flag and became the youngest driver ever to win an Xfinity race.

Despite finding less success during the rest of the season, with multiple DNFs, he found some form as he entered the playoffs, securing a ninth in Bristol and third in Texas to move onto the round of eight. Unfortunately, despite a third in Martinsville and a ninth in Homestead, a 17th place in Las Vegas left the rookie looking from the outside in for Phoenix, completing the championship in sixth place.

Following the strong rookie season, Smith decided to move to rivals JR Motorsports for the 2024 season. Smith had a strong start to the season, but struggled to get into winning positions and often had to settle for top-ten finishes. Despite not finding a win in the regular season, his consistent performances got him into the playoffs.

After a brutal start to the round of 12 with a 22nd place finish in Kansas, Smith headed to Talladega with a huge disadvantage in the points, and only a win could keep his championship hopes alive.

After starting the race in 27th place, Smith clawed his way back to a tenth place finish in stage one, and moved further up to third place at the end of stage two. After running near the lead for the entire stage three, the race went into overtime after a huge crash. Smith started on the outside lane for the restart.

Despite falling slightly behind on the restart, Smith stayed patient as the bottom line developed, and the line gave the now 20-year-old just enough of a push to move into the lead and his first win of the season, moving him onto the round of eight. He was ultimately eliminated with poor performances in Las Vegas, Homestead and Martinsville, finishing the season in 11th place in the championship.

A strong April capped off with a win

Returning to JRM for the 2025 season, he had questionable starts from February to March, including a poor performance in Daytona that landed him in 24th place. However, a huge bounce back in April landed the 20-year-old on the list.

Kicking off the month with a tenth place finish in Martinsville - extending his top-ten streak in Martinsville to five races. He then secured a ninth place finish in Darlington and his first top-five finish in Bristol Motor Speedway.

His highlight of the month came from NASCAR’s return to Rockingham during Cup Series’ Easter Break. After a relatively quiet start from the No.8, Smith slowly but surely moved his way up into the top five, before sneaking up right behind Jesse Love and Ryan Sieg on the restart with 20 to go.

As Sieg had to pit, it came down to Love and Smith. On the restart with five to go, Smith got a great jump to take a commanding lead but a late crash from Connor Zilisch sent the race into overtime.

Love had a blazing start behind Smith on the bottom line, pushing Smith aside as Love took the lead and the checkered flag. However, post race inspection disqualified the No.2, giving Smith the race win.

What the future holds

As a driver in the Chevrolet ranks, Smith has quite a few opportunities in the near future. As of today, there are 2026 openings in Kaulig Racing, Trackhouse Racing and possibly RCR if Kyle Busch decides to retire or Austin Dillon moves on, though it is highly unlikely.

It is more likely that Smith continues on with JRM for 2026, as he will most likely be focusing his efforts in securing a championship race appearance, if not a Xfinity championship in the near future.

Currently, Smith sits ninth in the drivers championship, but is a mere 14 points away from fifth place Brandon Jones. If Smith can keep up the good performances he put up in the month of April, he can easily find himself presented part time or even full time opportunities in the Cup Series in the near future.