Daniel Hemric and Noah Gragson fought on pit road after Saturday’s Xfinity race at Atlanta Motor Speedway and had to be separated.
Hemric approached Gragson, who was doing a post-race interview, and shoved Gragson. Gragson broke free of Hemric’s hold and swung at Hemric. Hemric retaliated. As a member of Gragson’s crew attempted to pull Hemric away, Gragson struck Hemric. NASCAR officials restrained Gragson.
Hemric was upset for an incident during the race when Gragson backed up into Hemric’s car on pit road during a stop.
Hemric told Performance Racing Network: “Pretty simple, man. He had no idea what was going on out on the racetrack. We come down the pit road. The guy pitted behind us, went to accelerate out as I was pulling into my box. It made me had to steer around the guy and go into (Gragson’s) box. I backed up. Yes, it messed up both of our pit stops. I backed up. He decided to put it in reverse and cram into the right front fender and put a hole our Poppy Bank Toyota Supra nose. We had to pit again and fix it.
“That was completely deliberate. It’s absolutely ridiculous. Where I come from, you get your eye dotted when you do stuff like that.”
Hemric also told PRN: “Oh yeah, (Gragson) crammed it into reverse and backed up. Punch a hole in the nose of our car, and I got one punch in his eye so we’re even.”
Asked about the fight with Hemric, Gragson told FS1: “I don’t know why he’s mad. We were behind him coming on to pit road … He was in our pit box, and I had to come around him and not really sure why he was there. I had to back up and get there.”
NASCAR stated that Gragson was called to the hauler after the race. NASCAR stated it will review the incident and if any penalties are issued they would be addressed later in the week.
Justin Allgaier won the race.
Following the event, Hemric stated why he was upset with Gragson.
On Twitter, Gragson said he didn’t intentionally back into the No. 18 on pit road to ruin Hemric’s day.
Gragson then tweeted out the video of his pit stop.
Last year, Gragson punched Harrison Burton after Burton repeatedly shoved him in the garage as they discussed their contact during last July’s Xfinity race at Kentucky Speedway.
UPDATE: Scott Miller, NASCAR Senior Vice President, Competition:
“We reviewed the incident which occurred between the 9 and 18 cars on pit road during Saturday night’s race at Atlanta Motor Speedway, and met with Noah Gragson after the event. A chain reaction of events led to the 18 and 9 both overshooting their pit stalls. The 9 ended up both long and out of his pit box to the outside, and needed to back up as far as possible to have any chance at fully pulling into his box. After reviewing the video, it is our judgement that the contact was not deliberate.”
— NASCAR —
