Ryan Hemphill Notches Top-Ten Finish In First Outing With BHR

Ryan Hemphill made the most of his first race with Bobby Hamilton Racing and the No. 4 team by battling his way from the back of the pack on two different occasions to finish in the 10th position.

Hemphill and the team's day started a little rough when they broke the engine in the first few minutes of practice. The crew put in the back up and was able to get Hemphill out in time to get a few laps of practice before qualifying, but it was nothing compared to the two hours of practice that the other competitors received.

When Hemphill qualified the truck in the 12th position later that same morning it became very apparent that he and the team had a strong truck for the race that afternoon. When the race started, Hemphill was relegated to the 36th position after an unapproved engine change so his work was cut out for him.

Hemphill began moving up immediately when the green flag flew, and by laps twenty he was in 27th place when he pitted for fuel.  On the restart, Hemphill started from the 22nd position and began his march to the front. It took over 70 laps but he steadily moved his way up to fifth place. On laps 106, the caution flew and Hemphill was running in the fourth position. He would hold that position until lap 150 when he accidentally hit the kill switch on the steering column. Hemphill rolled into his pit stall dead in the water. His crew jumped into action getting the truck back under power and on the track without losing a lap.

When the race restarted, Hemphill was in the 19th position. From that point on he began his second run to the front. Throughout the final 100 laps he picked trucks off one by one until he was racing for the top ten with the laps winding down. Then when the yellow flag flew late in the race, forcing a green-white checkered finish he made his move for the top ten, which is exactly where he finished.

"The big secret today was just being able to stay on the lead lap," said Hemphill. "We had some bad luck having to start last after a great qualifying run that would have put us in 12th place. We managed to stay on the lead lap because the crew was giving me excellent pit stops all day. We were running really well. I believe we had a third place truck for a while.
 
The crew gave me a great Dodge to work with and then it just went away late in the race. It died coming off of turn three, so I had to come into the pits because it just shut off. I started back up, but that put us in the rear again. We came back from that, but I had to run the end of the race with a flat left rear tire and that just killed me. Man, it was just a long day. But we did what we wanted as far as finishing strong our first time out."

Hemphill moved to the 44th position in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series points standing with only three starts this season.