This season’s NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series seven-race Playoff slate will feature a couple different venues – the one-mile New Hampshire Motor Speedway and the Charlotte ROVAL road course high on the minds of the drivers.
The EJP 175 on Sept. 20 marks the series’ first race at New Hampshire since 2017 – a race won by current NASCAR Cup Series star Christopher Bell. Enfinger is the only current Playoff driver who competed in that race eight years ago and he finished fourth.
The series heads to the Charlotte ROVAL road course on Oct. 3 – the middle event of the second round of races.
Having competed fulltime in the NASCAR Cup and Xfinity Series previously, Hemric, is the only driver among the Playoff 10 who has competed at both New Hampshire and the ROVAL. He said adding them to the Playoff slate was “interesting and intriguing” even from the fans’ perspective.
“I feel like the drivers in general, the ROVAL is a place not many have been there, fortunately I have been there a lot, but there are lots of little nuances that make the places intriguing,” said Hemric, the 2021 NASCAR Xfinity Series champion and driver of the No. 19 McAnally Hilgemann Racing Chevrolet Silverado.
“And then Loudon,” he continued. “I didn’t realize a lot of the drivers in the series had never raced there either. There are some things there, you can do all the simulation and all the prep, but until you run laps there it won’t fully qualify what that place is. At the end of the day, speed creates a lot of opportunities and if you have that you can kind of go and explore and maximize. I don’t look forward to it shaking things up too much within the Playoffs with contenders and who will contend, but definitely see adapting to have success.”