Hemric Scores Runner-Up After Fierce Battle for Victory in San Diego

Venue: Coronado Naval Base

FINISH: 2nd

Start: 32nd

Laps Led: 0

NCTS Point Standings Position: 8th

Daniel Hemric delivered a season high runner-up result on Friday evening at the Coronado Naval Base after fighting valiantly for the race win. The driver of the No. 19 NAPA Auto Care Chevrolet Silverado RST swapped the lead on the green-white-checkered restart and took the checkered flag in second position with a right front tire going down and made severe contact with the wall coming to the finish. The chaotic conclusion to a tumultuous day resulted in Hemric gaining significant ground in the Chase standings, advancing to eighth and now holds a 35-point cushion on the provisional cut line.

The inaugural outing on the Coronado Naval Base began with adversity for Hemric as he made significant contact with the wall in the second practice session, resulting in considerable damage to the No. 19 and had to start at the rear of the field. The first 12-lap stage saw Hemric swiftly climb through the field and elected to take track position as several trucks short-pitted before the stage break. As a result, Hemric was officially scored 12th at the end of Stage 1.

Crew chief Kevin Bellicourt kept Hemric on track during the stage caution and allowed him to restart fourth on lap 15. A clean restart and open track allowed Hemric to create a buffer on the rest of the field and comfortably ran inside the top-five, until he pitted from sixth position on lap 19. Despite a broken air gun on the four-tire green flag pit stop, Hemric stayed the course on his strategy and cycled to 24th at the end of Stage 2 on lap 24.

Under the second stage caution period, Hemric stayed on track and reclaimed fifth for the ensuing restart on lap 28. He ran fourth until making his final stop of the day under a lap 33 caution. On lap 36, Hemric took advantage of fresh tires and ample fuel load to attack the field after restarting 16th. He found himself ninth on lap 43 and rejoined the top-five after a restart on lap 49 of the originally scheduled 50-lap distance. One final yellow set up an overtime green-white-checkered finish as Hemric restarted fifth. Contact by the leaders allowed Hemric to capitalize and briefly took the lead coming to the white flag. He fought a full-contact slugfest for the lead before slipping to third, but took advantage of a miscue by the No. 42 truck in the final set of corners to take second, despite deflating a right front tire. The result is Hemric’s second straight top-five result on a road course.

Daniel Hemric Quote:

“Just a lot of fight. Appreciate Kevin Bellicourt, everyone on this No. 19 NAPA Auto Care Silverado. They just put a tremendous effort in. I got in the wall there in second practice, so they had a lot of work to do to get the body repaired and everyone came together on this McAnally-Hilgemann team to do that. We talked about what we wanted to do, strategy wise and it almost worked how we wanted it to. At the end of the day, no matter what strategy you’re on, you just got to be in one of those three or four rows to have a shot as the laps wind down. That’s where we found ourselves again. Grateful for that. Grateful for the opportunity to continue to trust the process and work on the process every week. Those last couple restarts, you’re in the fight, you can see the front couple of rows, and you got as good of a chance as anybody. Not sure what happened to the No. 38 off of [Turn] 1, and the window opened and I took it…and then I just misjudged the No. 42, got into him with the right front tire coming into the bus stop right before the white flag and from then on we had a tire going down. It’s bittersweet to run second, but I’m very grateful that we were able to get back to the start-finish line.”