Hemric Hopes Home Track Success is Near at Charlotte
Venue: Charlotte Motor Speedway
Events: North Carolina Education Lottery 200
Date: Friday, May 23
Location: Concord, NC
Track Description: 1.5-mile quad oval
Distance: 134 laps, 201 miles (8:30 p.m. ET – FOX Sports 1, Motor Racing Network)
Home Track Hope … Daniel Hemric hopes that his home track, Charlotte Motor Speedway (CMS), will offer the tonic to get him back to victory lane on Friday night. The driver of the No. 19 NAPA Auto Care Chevrolet Silverado RST has one victory in the bank this season and is looking for a second in his annual homecoming. One of Hemric’s most monumental career moments occurred at CMS when he captured the checkered flag in the Legends Million where he pocketed a $250,000 payday in 2010 and jumpstarted his career. He returns to CMS this week with four straight top-10’s, including three finishes of fourth or better in the last four races.
Heating Up … As the weather has been heating up, so has Hemric. The 34-year-old has been hitting his stride as the NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series (NCTS) is closing in on the stretch run to the playoffs. Hemric rallied to finish fourth last week at North Wilkesboro Speedway to extend his run of consecutive top-10 results to four races. Since finishing fifth at Homestead-Miami Speedway in March, Hemric and crew chief Josh Graham have just one finish outside the top-10 in those seven races. Hemric has been close to victory at CMS in the NASCAR Xfinity Series with a runner-up effort in 2020 and led a race-high 105 laps in 2021. He also has two NASCAR Cup Series starts under his belt at CMS along with a trio of NCTS appearances.
Season to Date … Hemric enters this week’s event in the Queen City third in the NCTS championship standings with eight races remaining before the playoffs. He owns the second-best average finish in the series of 7.4 with five top-five’s and seven top-10 results.
Tune In … Action from CMS gets underway at 3:30 p.m. ET on Friday afternoon with practice and qualifying on FOX Sports 2, followed by race coverage on FOX Sports 1 at 8:30 p.m. ET. Stay connected with the No. 19 NAPA Auto Care team by following @BMR_NASCAR on Twitter, @bmrnascar on Instagram, and Bill McAnally Racing on Facebook.
Daniel Hemric Quote:
On racing at home at Charlotte:
“Racing at home is always special. We get to have our families join us and it’s always a packed garage area. Our NAPA Auto Care team has done a great job recently of getting good finishes and running up front at the end of these races. We’ve had some challenges throughout the last couple weeks and have done a good job grinding it out. Everyone at MHR has put a lot of effort into fine tuning our Chevrolets, trying to maximize what we bring to the racetrack, so hopefully we can pay off everyone that’s a part of our program with a win on Friday.”