Hemric Rises Late To Win First Truck Race At Martinsville
Daniel Hemric celebrates with a burnout at Martinsville Speedway Friday. (Scotte Sprinkle/Race Face Digital photo)
MARTINSVILLE, Va. – Daniel Hemric signed with McAnally-Hilgemann Racing ahead of this year with a deep desire to get back to victory lane. Friday night at Martinsville Speedway, he made good on the plan.
With a bump to the back of teammate Tyler Ankrum inside of five to go, Hemric moved Ankrum off the bottom lane of the half-mile paperclip, clearing to the lead on lap 197 of the Boys & Girls Club of the Blue Ridge 200.
Hemric then fended off all challenges over the final four laps en route to his first career NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series win – 4,172 days after he debuted in the Truck Series at Martinsville on Oct. 26, 2013.
It was a validating triumph for the 34-year-old from Kannapolis, N.C., who struggled in a full-time NASCAR Cup Series campaign last year for Kaulig Racing and returned to the Truck Series with the sole focus of chasing wins and a championship: two things he felt fully confident he’s still capable of.
“We found a way there at the end,” said Hemric. “I wanted to race Tyler; I know we have a long season ahead, so I wanted to race as clean as I could, but I’ve walked out of here twice before (in the Xfinity Series) thinking there’s a missing spot in my dining room for a clock. It’s cool to get one here.”
After parking his truck at the start-finish line, Hemric also revived his long-held victory celebration – a backflip off the side of his No. 19 Chevrolet Silverado RST, the first since his championship celebration in the Xfinity Series in 2021, when he won the finale at Arizona’s Phoenix Raceway to claim the title.
“It’s a funny thing, because my wife asked me a couple weeks ago if I was not too old to do it,” Hemric said of the back flip. “I practiced once last week in the back yard and did a back flip on solid ground.
“I thought, ‘The old man’s still got it,’ and I proved that tonight.”
Daniel Hemric kisses the grandfather clock trophy in victory lane at Martinsville Speedway. (HHP/Andrew Coppley photo)
In addition to the grandfather clock trophy, Hemric also collected a $50,000 bonus for winning the first round of the three-race Triple Truck Challenge bonus program.
The initiative continues at both Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway and Rockingham (N.C.) Speedway in April. If Hemric can win one more of those two events, he’ll earn another $100,000 to increase his payout to a total of $150,000. Should he sweep all three, the money jumps to $500,000 in total.
For most of the night, it appeared that TRICON Garage’s Corey Heim – the season’s dominant driver thus far – was in the driver’s seat to easily take home his third win in five races to open the campaign.
Heim swept both stages and led 149 of the first 166 laps Friday night. However, contact with Kaden Honeycutt on a lap-166 restart cut his left-rear tire and led to Heim spinning and slapping the outside wall in turn one with 34 to go.
From there, chaos developed and it didn’t pay to be the leader until the very end.
Honeycutt inherited the top spot after Heim’s incident and led the next 20 circuits, until a caution period with 15 laps left for a three-truck incident in turn three involving Jack Wood, Tanner Gray, and Grant Enfinger.
Following the next restart, Honeycutt washed up off the bottom exiting turn four coming to 14 to go, allowing Majeski to get alongside him down the frontstretch. But on entry to turn one, Majeski wheel-hopped and broke loose, washing up into the side of Honeycutt’s truck and spinning both of them out.
That put the lead in then third-running Ankrum’s hands for the final restart with eight to go, and the Californian did what he could to fend off his teammate before Hemric’s ultimate race-winning move.
“Congratulations to Daniel — I can’t think of a nicer guy to win,” Ankrum said. “Yeah, he gave me the bumper, but you’re going to do that at Martinsville. I honestly would much rather have a teammate give me the bumper for the win, because at least in that situation, we still get a win for MHR.”
ThorSport Racing’s Jake Garcia posted his best finish in a year-and-a-half with a third-place run, followed by Front Row Motorsports’ Chandler Smith and Garcia’s teammate, two-time Truck Series champion Ben Rhodes.
Despite his late-race misfortune, Heim still charged back through the field to finish sixth, best among the Toyota contingent in the manufacturer’s 500th race in the Truck Series.
Andres Perez de Lara, Rajah Caruth, Stewart Friesen, and Lawless Alan closed the top 10.
Majeski came back to 13th, while Honeycutt ended up two laps down in 26th due to damage sustained in their incident.
Heim continues to lead the regular season standings, holding a 20-point edge over Majeski through five races.
The NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series takes a week off before heading to Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway for the first of two Truck Series stops at The Last Great Colosseum this season.
Broadcast coverage of the WeatherGuard Truck Race from Bristol is slated for Friday night, April 11 at 7:30 p.m. ET, live on FS1, the NASCAR Racing Network, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, channel 90.
