MARTINSVILLE, Va. — Daniel Hemric scored his first career NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series win Friday night, capitalizing on late misfortune for series leader Corey Heim to take the checkered flag in the Boys and Girls Club of the Blue Ridge 200 at Martinsville Speedway.
Heim looked every bit the class of the field for most of the night, winning both opening stages and leading a race-high 149 of 200 laps. But contact with Kaden Honeycutt’s Chevrolet after a Lap 166 restart cut down Heim’s left-rear tire and sent him to pit road, handing the lead to Honeycutt. The reprieve was short-lived: on Lap 187, Ty Majeski’s Ford got loose racing Honeycutt for the top spot, and both trucks spun into the outside wall, putting Tyler Ankrum — Hemric’s McAnally-Hilgemann Racing teammate — out front.
Hemric ran down his teammate in the closing laps, using his bumper to clear Ankrum’s truck with four laps remaining and pulling away to win by 0.544 seconds. The 34-year-old celebrated with his signature backflip, a move he’d only landed once before in national series competition, and earned a grandfather clock trophy plus a $50,000 Triple Truck Challenge bonus as the race’s highest-finishing series regular. Jake Garcia, Chandler Smith and Ben Rhodes rounded out the top five, while Heim rallied back to sixth after his tire change.
Heim retains the points lead by 20 over Majeski heading into the next Truck Series race at Bristol Motor Speedway on April 11.