Daniel Hemric Hoping to Repeat Mid-Ohio Success at Road America

By Seth Eggert, NASCAR Writer

Career firsts continue for Daniel Hemric as the NASCAR Xfinity Series heads to Road America for the Johnsonville 180. This will be Hemric’s first time competing at the 4.048-mile road course.

In his two previous road course races in the Xfinity Series, Hemric finished 11th at Watkins Glen, and second in his first race at Mid-Ohio in the No. 21 Blue Gate Bank Chevrolet Camaro. The second-place finish was a career best for Hemric.

Hemric also has two top-fives at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series and one top-10 at Watkins Glen in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East.

Hemric hopes to repeat his Mid-Ohio success at Road America,

“This is my first time at Road America, but it was also my first time racing at Mid-Ohio, so hopefully we can have similar results this weekend. I feel like Road America will be a mixture of Watkins Glen and Mid-Ohio. There are a lot of really fast parts of the racetrack, but there are also a lot of slow, technical parts of the track. From what I understand, it doesn’t have a ton of grip either. It’s going to be fun. I really enjoy any track where there’s tire wear and fall off.”

Despite his limited road course experience, Hemric is looking forward to the opportunity,

“To be able to do that at a road course is something I’m really looking forward to because I haven’t been able to experience that before. I know our race cars have been really fast at the road courses so far this year and RCR has been very successful at Road America over the last few years. It’s a track we’ve circled and I’m ready to get there with the No. 21 Blue Gate Bank Chevrolet.”

To date, Hemric has three top-fives, 10 top-10s, and one pole position this season. Entering Road America, he sits fifth in the championship point standings, 206 points behind leader Elliott Sadler. Hemric is also 216 points ahead of the cutoff for the Playoffs.

In the battle for the 2017 NASCAR Xfinity Series Sunoco Rookie of the Year, Hemric second in points. He sits 46-points behind rookie point leader William Byron.

Hemric credited Chevrolet with helping him get acclimated to the road courses,

“Chevrolet has done a great job of getting us rookie drivers seat time on the simulator and having the road course experts come in to help us with techniques and what we can do to improve ourselves on the road courses. At the end of the day, none of us have done a lot of road course racing. It’s a process and it’s just a matter of who can prepare the best. I feel like we’ve done all we can do to prepare and now it’s time to put it in motion.”

For now, Hemric and his Richard Childress Racing team will look to have the same success they found in Mid-Ohio at Road America.