TALLADEGA, Ala. – After a rough start to his Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series rookie season, Daniel Hemric left Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway smiling after producing his first career top-five finish in Sunday’s GEICO 500.
The Richard Childress Racing driver had a strong weekend at the 2.66-mile superspeedway. After qualifying his No. 8 Caterpillar Chevrolet fifth on Saturday afternoon, the Kannapolis, N.C.-native stuck with Chevrolet’s “plan” to keep the bowties working together.
On a restart with four laps to go, the pushing and shoving began but Hemric was able to stay attached to the rear of Ryan Preece’s No. 47 JTG-Daugherty Chevrolet and while Team Penske’s Joey Logano fought gallantly on the outside to break up the Chevrolet train, Hemric finished fifth and bettered his 18th place finish from ISM (Phoenix) Raceway in March.
“Chevrolet and all the drivers and teams put in the effort to communicate here in the last few weeks to try and stay dedicated and committed to each other. We’ve talked about it in the past, but we’ve never had such unity on the racetrack like we had today,” said Hemric. “That’s what led to us ultimately having our best finish as a group. I’m proud of that and of all the Chevrolet drivers sticking together.
“The first objective was to make sure a Bowtie ended up in Victory Lane today, and that’s what happened today. I’m proud of all these guys.”
Despite starting inside the top-five on Sunday, Hemric had to work for his finish.
Shuffled out of the lead pack at the end of Stage 1, Hemric had to use a good handling race car and the pushes of his Chevrolet posse to move back into the top-10 at the end of Stage 2 to finish eighth and collect three valuable stage points.
Throughout Stage 3, Hemric flexed his muscle and despite a green-flag pit stop which shifted the running order, Hemric was able to find his zone and wait for the opportunity to strike.
Unfortunately, with Ricky Stenhouse Jr. wrecked near the start-finish line and an airborne Kyle Larson on the backstretch, NASCAR threw the caution before entering Turn 3 freezing the field and leaving Hemric with his best result in 12 career Cup starts.
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
