A NASCAR fight -- like, a real one -- broke out Saturday afternoon at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
Daniel Hemric and Noah Gragson clashed during a pit stop late in the EchoPark 250, which Justin Allgaier eventually one. The two drivers, parked in adjacent stalls, jockeyed for position, with an agitated Gragson backing his No. 9 Chevrolet into Hemric's No. 18 Toyota.
After the race, Hemric exited his car and approached Gragson, who was doing an interview, and started a fight that was among the more heated NASCAR brawls we've seen in a while.
First, take a look at the incident from the late-race pit stop:
Now, check out multiple angles of the post-race fight:
Yeah, that had shades of the Kyle Busch-Joey Logano fight from 2017.
As you might expect, both Gragson and Hemric had much to say after the fight.
“Pretty simple. He had no idea what was going on out on the race track,” Hemric said, via NASCAR.com. “We come down pit road and the guy pitted behind us when you accelerate when I was pulling into my box, and it made me have to steer around the guy going to the 9’s (Gragson) box. I backed up and yes, it messed up both of our pit stops.
“I backed up and he decided to put it in reverse and cram into the right-front fender and knock a hole in our Poppy Bank Toyota Supra nose. We had to pit again and fix it. That was completely deliberate and it was absolutely ridiculous. Where I come from, you get your eye dotted when you do stuff like that.”
From Gragson: “I don’t know why he’s mad. We were behind him coming onto pit road … Then he was in our pit box and I had to come around him and not really sure why he was there, but had to back up and get there. … I’d be mad if I was in his shoes, too, just based off what he’s done in his career, but it is what it is and we’ll move on and keep on fighting. Man, what a day. Top five, we’ll go celebrate that.”
Here are the interviews they did with FOX Sports after the dust settled:
Gragson later posted these tweets:
To which Hemric replied with this:
So, who's more at fault in this mess? If you ask us, both drivers looked bad in this petty dispute.
As for potential punishment, NASCAR said decisions would be announced later this week.
