William Byron took his 4th win of 2017 on Saturday at Phoenix to clinch his spot in the Championship 4 at Homestead.  Byron took the lead on a pit stop on lap 183 out of 200, where he took 2 tires.  Byron had a pickup pit crew because his regular pit crew couldn’t get to Phoenix due to an emergency landing on their plane in Arkansas.  “The second-to-last run of the race, it took off on the long run,” said Byron, who was knocked out of the Truck Series Playoff last year when his engine blew at Phoenix. “I got up to third, and we got the two tires on it, and we were able to stay up there. I felt like clean air was pretty important. The 20, the 22 and us were really similar. Whoever was in third would lose distance to the front two after probably 20 or 30 laps. We just had to adjust on it and make sure we got it right for the last pit stop.”  Byron will race on Homestead on Saturday with a chance of winning the NASCAR Xfinity Series title.

Daniel Hemric and Cole Custer were racing late in the race for the final spot in the championship 4, and Hemric prevailed in the battle.  Hemric and Custer battle door-to-door in the final laps, and Hemric advanced via his 5th place finish.  Brennan Poole was eliminated after a collision with Caesar Bacarella, who was a lapped car.  “Our car was pretty good,” Poole said. “Just a bummer. I don’t know what else to say. Sometimes some lapped cars are in your way, you’ve got to navigate around them, and we just didn’t make it happen.”  Poole was very critical of Bacarella, who was making his NASCAR debut.  “It’s a shame, but it’s already over,” Poole said. “It’s done with. I can’t control it, so we’ll move on to Homestead and try to go get our first win there and start getting ready for the next year. I just feel like we’ve got to re-evaluate some of these lapped cars and who’s out there and who’s not out there.”

William Byron, Justin Allgaier, Elliott Sadler, and Daniel Hemric are the 4 championship contenders on Saturday at Homestead.  The best finisher of the 4 is champion.  Tune in to NBCSN at 3:30 PM ET on Saturday for the Ford EcoBoost 300 at Homestead.

Credit to www.nascar.com

Written on November 13, 2017