Dale Jr.’s mystique evident as Hemric brings No. 8 back to Talladega

TALLADEGA, Ala. – The No. 8 holds a special distinction at Talladega Superspeedway thanks to Dale Earnhardt Jr.

That car number has six wins at the Alabama track -- with Junior providing five of the triumphs, including four straight from 2001 to 2003. The car number’s only other win came from Bobby Hillin Jr in 1986. RELATED: Every Earnhardt win at Talladega | Full schedule for Talladega Earnhardt's success is not lost on Richard Childress Racing's Daniel Hemric, the current driver of the car bearing that number. The 28-year-old Kannapolis, North Carolina, native knows firsthand how big Earnhardt leading and winning at Talladega was. The No. 8 made its return to full-time Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series racing this season after an 11-year absence from the top series' field; Aric Almirola last drove the number in Talladega in 2008. "Throughout the last couple weeks, a lot of the hype of the 8 being back again and all that kind of dwindled out and personally it felt like we were just going to the race track to race the car with that number," Hemric said. "When you come into this place, I remember as a kid watching Junior take the lead here and the place go crazy. "I felt a certain pride when I pulled through the tunnel (Friday) morning at Talladega because of that. I know there's a lot of fans that want to see the number back in Victory Lane and that's why we come here to try and give ourselves a shot and our fans a shot to get in Victory Lane." Sunday's GEICO 500 (2 p.m. ET on FOX, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) will mark Hemric's first Cup race at the 2.66-mile superspeedway. The Sunoco Rookie of the Year contender has had some rookie bumps in his maiden run at the top level with with a best finish of 18th (at Phoenix) while he is 28th in the standings. RELATED: Hemric has family history in hardwood | Drivers of the No. 8 in NASCAR A promising run was foiled by a flat tire at Atlanta, where he was running in the top five late in the final stage. A good qualifying effort at Texas (seventh) went by the wayside after contact with the wall. "I haven’t put a full race together I don't feel like, from a mistake-free standpoint -- pit road, whether it's on the race track, whether it's bad timing pulling out of line to make a move. On that side of it, I just haven’t fully done my job." All that adds up to Hemric assessing the first-quarter of his rookie year with brutal honesty. "I’d give myself about a D," Hemric said of his first nine races in 2019. "I've made more mistakes here in the past five to six weeks than in all of my personal career. I feel like our race cars have been 10 to 15 spots better averaging finishing quality than where I've finished with them and that’s the opposite of what I've tried to pride myself off of. "It's all about putting one foot back in front of the other and that’s what we've been doing through Richmond and hopefully we can do the same thing this weekend."