Daniel Hemric trades paint with Austin Cindric on way to narrow Xfinity Championship win

By Bob Pockrass
FOX Sports NASCAR Writer

AVONDALE, Ariz. — Daniel Hemric had done everything in NASCAR but win a NASCAR national series race. Until Saturday night.

Hemric captured his first victory in epic fashion as he made contact with defending Xfinity Series champion Austin Cindric on the final lap and edged Cindric by 0.03 seconds for the victory at Phoenix Raceway and the series championship.

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The race was Hemric’s 120th in the series, and he had 10 second-place finishes and had led 1,183 laps in races up until the championship race. Hemric also had 38 Cup starts and 50 truck starts without a victory.

"This is what it's all about, winning at the second-highest level in all of motorsports," Hemric said. "What an honor. Unbelievable. I'd do it all over again. I'll take all the heartbreaks again to live this right here."

While Hemric and Cindric went 1-2, the other two championship contenders weren’t as close: Noah Gragson finished 12th and AJ Allmendinger was 14th.

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Hemric trades paint for win

Hemric rubbed Cindric’s bumper, and they banged doors a little before Hemric made the pass. With them finishing 1-2 and Cindric not in the wall, it was an acceptable way to win the race.

"Until you spin somebody out, it’s not dirty racing," Cindric said.

Cindric, who had won the previous two races at Phoenix, including a year ago to capture the Xfinity Series championship, said Hemric was in position to make the move.

"The catalyst there was not getting clear off of Turn 4," Cindric said. "Obviously he drove it in stupid deep and left reared me, was still able to stay side-by-side. ... That was all he needed to be was close."

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Hemric’s thought process was somewhat simple: "I just knew I had to be the first one to the line."

Now off to Kaulig

Hemric had previously announced he would leave Joe Gibbs Racing after this season and drive for Kaulig Racing next year.

"Something that Daniel can bring is a lot of knowledge from different race cars, the way things feel, maybe what's good or bad about our race cars," Allmendinger said.

"I look forward to really having him. I think it's a great hire. Now he's the champ. ... We got the champ on the team."

While Hemric knows what he is doing, his crew chief, Dave Rogers, said he did not know what he will be doing at JGR next year.

After saying that, he turned to team COO Coy Gibbs and said, "Pay raise."

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Now off to Cup

Cindric will move to the Cup Series, replacing Brad Keselowski at Team Penske. The organization has not announced an Xfinity driver for next season, and a team executive declined to comment earlier Saturday on whether the organization would field a team in the series next year.

The realization this could have been the last race in the series at least for a while for a Penske entry wasn’t lost on Cindric.

"It’s obviously been an extremely successful program, something that's taken a lot of pride through the race shop," Cindric said.

Bob Pockrass has spent decades covering motorsports, including the past 30 Daytona 500s. He joined FOX Sports in 2019 following stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram @bobpockrass. Looking for more NASCAR content? Sign up for the FOX Sports NASCAR Newsletter with Bob Pockrass!