{"id":23294,"date":"2019-02-13T08:00:17","date_gmt":"2019-02-13T14:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=23294"},"modified":"2019-02-13T20:50:22","modified_gmt":"2019-02-14T02:50:22","slug":"rookie-daniel-hemric-still-enjoying-the-glow-from-surprising-qualifying-effort","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2019\/02\/13\/rookie-daniel-hemric-still-enjoying-the-glow-from-surprising-qualifying-effort\/","title":{"rendered":"Rookie Daniel Hemric still enjoying the glow from surprising qualifying effort"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service<\/em><\/p>\n

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. \u2013 Daniel Hemric<\/strong> was surprised.<\/p>\n

Actually, shocked might be a better description.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Daniel Hemric speaks to the media during the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series 61st Annual Daytona 500 Media Day at Daytona International Speedway on February 13, 2019 in Daytona Beach, Florida. (Photo by Jonathan Ferrey\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

But when Daytona 500 single-car qualifying shook out on Sunday, Hemric was fifth on the board, behind only the dominant Hendrick Motorsports quartet ofBusch Pole winner William Byron, Alex Bowman, Jimmie Johnson and Chase Elliott.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe never got to do a full qualifying run on practice day there,\u201d said Hemric, who as a Kannapolis, N.C., native carries the additional weight of driving the No. 8 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet. That car number forever will be associated with \u201cDriver 8\u201d\u2014Dale Earnhardt Jr.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t know what to expect,\u201d Hemric added. \u201cI said to (crew chief) Luke Lambert, \u2018What are we going to run?\u2019 and he said, \u2018Honestly, dude, if we could have run that (mock qualifying) lap, I\u2019d have a lot better idea for you, but I don\u2019t know either.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I saw my teammate, Austin Dillon (the 2018 Daytona 500 winner), go to the top of the board early on, he ran a good bit faster than what we expected our cars to run. It gave me some confidence that maybe we could lock into the second round and have a shot at that, let alone to qualify fifth.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Sunoco Rookie of the Year contender, who has two previous Monster Energy Cup Series starts to his credit\u2014and none at Daytona\u2014was still enjoying his qualifying success when he took questions from reporters Wednesday during Daytona 500 media day at Daytona International Speedway.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were incredibly proud, because so much effort goes into building these race cars, and so much in the offseason between ECR (Earnhardt-Childress Racing Engines), Chevrolet and RCR. It\u2019s our biggest event, and you want to come down here and have speed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know it\u2019s early in the week by the time you qualify, but it\u2019s something that gets the momentum rolling for the week.\u201d<\/p>\n

Qualifying is one thing. Racing is another, and Hemric has never raced a Cup car in a draft with 39 other drivers.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve never driven these cars in a big, big pack,\u201d Hemric acknowledged. \u201cI think Luke\u2019s leadership, running this team as a crew chief\u2026 I think he\u2019s given me the raceability in our race cars, once we do get in a pack, from qualifying to race adjustments.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we run the 150s (the Gander RV Duel 150-mile qualifying races on Thursday night), it\u2019s going to be cooler, so your handling may not show up quite as quick, but once the sun comes out of Sunday, you\u2019re going to have to have your stuff driving good. He\u2019s been beating that in my head pretty early on in the offseason to make sure we\u2019re prepared and know what we need for the draft\u2014and I feel like we\u2019re ready.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. \u2013 Daniel Hemric was surprised. Actually, shocked might be a better description. But when Daytona 500 single-car qualifying shook out on Sunday, Hemric was fifth on the board, behind only the dominant Hendrick Motorsports quartet ofBusch Pole winner William Byron, Alex Bowman, Jimmie Johnson and Chase Elliott. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":676,"featured_media":23296,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11],"tags":[678,42,287,16],"class_list":["post-23294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","tag-daniel-hemric","tag-daytona-500","tag-daytona-international-speedway","tag-nascar"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/Hemric_MediaDay_021319.jpg?fit=4512%2C3174&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-63I","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/676"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23294"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23294\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23298,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23294\/revisions\/23298"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}