Daniel Hemric took a step back after the 2019 Cup Series season but never lost sight of the goal.
He won the 2021 Xfinity Series championship with Joe Gibbs Racing and then joined Kaulig Racing with both parties maintaining a desire to get Hemric back in the Cup Series. That timeline will reach fruition in 2024 when Hemric takes over the No. 31 Chevrolet.
Hemric has had such an anomalous NASCAR career.
Now 32 years old, Hemric first arrived in NASCAR a decade ago as one of the most respected blue-collar short track aces with Super Late Model championships in both the Midwest and Southeast to his resume.
Hemric has continually run up front in the Xfinity Series over six seasons with 53 top-5s in 179 starts but has only won once during that period. Fortunately for him, he made the most of that lone victory as it came in the 2021 Xfinity Series championship race at Phoenix Raceway.
The Kannapolis, North Carolina native ran a full Cup Series season in 2019, the first using the high downforce, low horsepower rules package and Hemric never seemed comfortable or successful and it resulted in a return to Xfinity.
In these cars, at this level, Hemric is good enough to always run up front and contend for wins but just doesn’t break through. Even this season, Hemric has 13 top-10s and five top-5s in 26 starts but Kaulig Racing president Chris Rice says the company is responsible for much of their results.
“As a race team, we need to get better and I don’t think we are where we need to be and that’s unacceptable,” Rice said. “Last week, we had two failures that were out of our control but it made us learn.
“Daniel has been fastest in practice the past two weeks and we need to do our jobs as a group, get together and click off stage wins to get to the final four. … With Daniel knowing what he’s doing next year, there’s a comfort in that but (crew chief) Alex Yontz and everyone has worked really hard to fix those problems.”
As for next year, Hemric has funding and that goes a long way with securing the No. 31 ride but Rice and team owner Matt Kaulig also believe in Hemric and have from the moment they brought him into their Xfinity Series program.
From day one, they had the expectation that Hemric would be driving their Cup Series cars down the road once the business and competition sides aligned to make it happen.
“Tough times last a short time and tough people last a long time,” Rice said. “When we started this journey with Daniel Hemric back in February about Cup racing, that’s what we talked about and we’ve talked about it a lot.
“With Cirkul and our team partners, it became evident that Daniel was going to work as hard as he needed to work behind the scenes, and not on the track, to get back to Cup. I know the first time he went Cup racing, it wasn’t the best and he probably beat himself to death when that season was over and he didn’t feel the best about it.
“But we’re going to have a good time, we want to win and that’s Matt Kaulig expects but this is going to be something to feel good about.”
As for Hemric, he knows there will be doubters based on the lack of Xfinity Series wins and what happened in his only Cup Series season to date, but he says let them doubt.
“That’s fine because I’ll keep showing up,” Hemric said. “Simple as that.”
The conversations between them ramped up in February, and while no promises were given, Hemric worked hard behind the scenes to make sure he had the funding to get that ride.
“These guys went to bat for me when I didn’t know what I had next in 2021,” Hemric said. “We sat down and talked about there vision not only for 2024 but 2025 and beyond and I wanted to be a part of it. I was never promised anything but it’s true that if keep showing up, put the work in and have the heart, you’ll have the shot that you dream of.”
He said that while fighting back genuine tears.
“It’s here. I’m back.”
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Matt Weaver is a Motorsports Insider for Sportsnaut. Follow him on Twitter.