Tag:

Daniel Hemric

NASCAR Trucks: Spire’s Rajah Caruth pulls down curtains on Corey Heim and Layne Riggs on time to taste victory at Nashville

by Sports Benches May 30, 2025

Rajah Caruth – gotta credit his pit crew and crew chief on getting that No.71 truck past Corey Heim with the Nashville win.

He had a superior Top 3 truck who was also impressive at restarts & boy, a good balance of being the fastest on pit road and the right adjustments proved to be something that no one else could match but than Rajah & 71 himself.

More good Spire news with shoutout to the No.7 of Corey Day in 5th.

Second best from Heim where the 11 truck was always there no doubt; there were areas that didn’t go his favour, especially after he missed out to Caruth in Stage 3.

Good recovery also from Stage 1 winner Layne Riggs in particular with his long run speed back to 3rd & Daniel Hemric made a lot of ground whose No.19 truck may not be close to Heim & Caruth when it comes to the race for 1st but still great for 4th.

May 30, 2025 0 comment

NASCAR

NASCAR Trucks: 2025 SpeedyCash.com 250, Corey Heim holds off the win following a night full of cutting infield grasses and bumping into walls at Texas

by Sports Benches May 3, 2025

Saw many getting run over into the wall & so does through the infield grass as the the of the day, brilliant stuff with the win by Toyota’s Tricon Truck star Corey Heim.

He knows there were several front-runners wanting to steal the lead off him but Corey kept himself calm all along and he knew he did exactly that to defend all of that noise on his way (at last via overtime) to the checkered flag.

He also had a better long-run set up where he first took the lead somewhere in Stage 2 and having led the most laps, Corey will want to be the driver to beat every week as the Trucks season goes on.

So close there from Daniel Hemric (2nd) and Spire’s Rajah Caruth (3rd) – that race at Texas just never ends at the hands of yellows but both had solid endings there.

More shoutouts as well to Bayley Currey with his 2nd Top 10 of 2025 in 8th and Rackley W.A.R.’s Dawson Sutton (an 18-year-old rookie) just secured his first career Top 10 at Trucks level in 9th.

May 3, 2025 0 comment

NASCAR News Today: Joey Logano the first driver to make it into the Round of 12 with the win after a great day for Team Penske & the Blue Oval at Atlanta Motor Speedway

by Sports Benches September 9, 2024

It was massive Ford (Mustang) & even Team Penske day to light up the opening 2024 NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs race at Atlanta Motor Speedway where each of their three drivers won each stage (Ryan Blaney in Stage 1 for the No.12 followed by Austin Cindric in Stage 2 for the No.2) as today’s winner was all about Joey Logano in the No.22 side for Team Penske.

It’s been a while since his last win in Nashville back in late June where he had a really top day upfront – mainly in the Top 5 – before more late cautions went his way to reach top spot, and there goes Joey Logano with his 2nd win of 2024 & also being the first driver now to advance into the second Round of 12 Playoffs. So nothing to worry about there until Kansas at the end of this month where he will either need to win again or stay consistent with his results up front on the road to the Championship 4 Finale as it’s party time for Joey & his No.22 Team Penske crew right now on the way home.

What else? Oh so close from Daniel Suarez there who finished 2nd in the No.99 Chevy Camaro for Trackhouse & he too loves racing at this track off the back of his early-round win back in late February. As long as he can stay consistently in the Top 5-10, then sure we will get to see more of him when it comes to the next round and even semi-finals round of Playoffs – keep your head up!

Meanwhile, Christopher Bell continues to be so good in the No.20 Toyota Camry for Joe Gibbs Racing as he finished 4th & is currently 2nd on drivers’ points behind reigning champ & 3rd-placed finisher in this 2nd Atlanta race Ryan Blaney. This is the man who has made it to the last two season-finale races and he would love to make his 3rd season-finale attempt being his championship-winning breakthrough at Cup level.

And hats off to a few others that got away with some good finishes just outside the Top 10 mark. We begin with Daniel Hemric in 11th for Kaulig Racing (Chevy), Justin Haley 12th for Rick Ware Racing (Ford), Ricky Stenhouse Jr. in 14th for JTG Daugherty Racing (Chevy) & don’t forget the Spire Motorsports Chevy duo of Corey LaJoie (No.7) and Carson Hocevar (No.77) who both came home in 15th and 16th respectively.

Next stop: Watkins Glen International where we will be going road course racing albeit in a slightly different time of the year next Monday rather than always August in New York as the Round of 16 is still up for grabs for some drivers if they really want to be in to win until the first cut-off ends with the Bristol Motor Speedway night race on Saturday 21st September 2024.

September 9, 2024 0 comment

Motorsport NASCAR

Thoughts on Kaulig Racing wanting to give up the No.16 charter and even both since they struggled to replace AJ Allmendinger

by Sports Benches May 9, 2024

Image Reference: TaurusEmerald via Wikipedia, CC BY 4.0 International

Since Kaulig Racing struggled to replace AJ Allmendinger full-time in the No.16 Chevy Camaro this Cup Series season, it’s been no surprise that they went back to the multi-driver format like it was two years ago and then they would wanna give it up that early by selling one of their charters or even both with Daniel Hemric being the only full-time driver in the No.31 car.

Yes, the results aren’t that bad sometimes when Daniel scored back-to-back Top 10s in recent weeks at Talladega and Dover other than AJ scoring well whenever he can at the Daytona 500 (6th), Circuit of the Americas (6th again) and Dover I (13th) because he wants to go back to enjoy racing on Saturdays which is the Xfinity Series. However, it seems they don’t have a long-term replacement driver to promote from here with Justin Haley now at Rick Ware Racing in the No.51 Ford Mustang.

I would’ve loved to see Shane Van Gisbergen take up AJ’s spot in the No.16 cup car next year as he would be the perfect replacement from someone who shares the same road course ringer pedigree as AJ. But then he’s tied by Trackhouse who gave him his first steps into the world of NASCAR from Supercars and Justin Marks wouldn’t wanna let SVG go that easily, even though Trackhouse wishes to expand from 2 Cup cars in 2025. Instead, we could see them race four Cup cars where the 3rd car would go to Zane Smith after Michael McDowell just announced his departure at Front Row Motorsports to take up his current spot in the No.71 Chevy for Spire Motorsports while the fourth car will be reserved for the seasoned Supercars champ.

Where we could see Trackhouse buy these charters from? the No.16 Kaulig one looks most certain now and the other would come from Stewart-Haas Racing who is still open to selling 1-2 charters at season’s end. I guess the uncertainty on how the sport’s uncertain future on the way they see the charter system turns out to be a great time right now to use this advantage.

And with Kaulig potentially downsizing to now one Cup car, will see them stay on at the top level for a bit longer? Probably not since their ambitions to run Top 10-15 for the most part seems to be fading away where their best bet is to sell the other charter to Richard Childress Racing also at season’s end to create a 3rd full-time car for Austin Hill next year and then just focus on getting the best out of their Xfinity program just like BJ McLeod’s own motorsports team. Sometimes you would need top quality driving talent alongside a decent amount of $$$ to meet your ambitions by winning races in the Cup Series but a lack of good long-term replacements seems like Kaulig Racing would wanna leave this level sooner rather than later.

May 9, 2024 0 comment