Daniel Hemric (third) led Toyota with a top-five finish in the Dead On Tools 250 on Saturday evening. With the finish, Hemric clinched his spot in the Championship 4.
Toyota Racing Post-Race Recap
NASCAR Xfinity Series
Martinsville Speedway
Race 32 of 33 – 250 miles, 131.5 laps
TOYOTA FINISHING POSITIONS
1st, Noah Gragson*
2nd, Austin Cindric*
3rd, DANIEL HEMRIC
4th, Sam Mayer*
5th, Justin Allgaier*
6th, BRANDON JONES
14th, COLIN GARRETT
20th, HARRISON BURTON
21st, STEPHEN LEICHT
24th, DAVID STARR
26th, AKINORI OGATA
27th, TY GIBBS
*non-Toyota driver
TOYOTA QUOTES
DANIEL HEMRIC, No. 18 Poppy Bank Toyota Supra, Joe Gibbs Racing
Finishing Position: 3rd
How challenging was it down the stretch making decisions?
“I have got to tell you – it’s the first time as a racer that I’ve had to choose to not put myself in the best position to win. I wanted to line up on the top. I felt like I could beat him if everything is all fair games, but the ultimate goal at the start of the season with this Poppy Bank Toyota Supra team was do what we officially have a shot to do in Phoenix next weekend. It just felt like we had a shot to minimize the damage and that’s what we did. I’m so disappointed. This car should be in Victory Lane.”
BRANDON JONES, No. 19 Menards/Dupont Air Filtration Toyota Supra, Joe Gibbs Racing
Finishing Position: 6th
What was the race car like and the race like for you?
“Yeah, I just think we were off a little bit. We weren’t missing much because we were jumping back and forth between different balances. Had a really good moment, I’d say mid stage two, early stage three that really got the car to come to life. Actually, went to the back and drove all the way back to the top 10. So, I thought that was the turnaround point for our race there and kind of fell back off there for a little bit towards the end of the race. I don’t know man, we’ve got to go back and figure out where we missed it a little bit here. All in all, this was a good fight for us still. Menards, Dupont, can’t thank those guys enough for being on our Supra this weekend. I keep saying, let’s go to Phoenix and let’s go win that thing. I think all the tracks we’re capable of winning at, so let’s go try to do that at Phoenix.”
HARRISON BURTON, No. 20 DEX Imaging Toyota Supra, Joe Gibbs Racing
Finishing Position: 20th
Is it more difficult to wonder what could have been?
“It sucks. I don’t know. Obviously, we put ourselves in this position. We needed to perform better throughout the year to not be in this position. The last two weeks I felt like we could have won the race, and I don’t know. It’s a tough system to win. That’s what makes it fun for the fans and fun for us. We just need to perform better. It’s that simple. We had a winning car today. Just so many things have to go right in racing to win that it makes it challenging to do on the drop of a dime. We just had a couple things go wrong. It’s just a bummer deal that we didn’t get to show our speed at the end. Wish we could have won this thing. I felt like we were definitely capable of it. Our times were better than the 9 (Noah Gragson) and he won. We just needed to show it.”
Toyota Racing PR
