Back At The Rock

One of the burning questions ahead of the release of the 2026 schedules for all three national touring NASCAR series was whether or not Rockingham would be back for a second year after the success of hosting an Easter Weekend Craftsman Truck Series-ARCA Menard’s East-Xfinity (now O’Reilly Auto Parts) Series triple header. Despite the added challenge of the track ownership changing hands over the offseason, the brass in Charlotte saw fit to give it another go, further fueling hopes that the mile-long D-shaped oval in Richmond County, NC would eventually earn a long-term partnership with the nation’s premier stock car racing organization with the end goal being an eventual return of the Cup Series.

The weekend started with a dominant victory for Cory Heim in which he led 178 of the 200 laps en route to his second win in the 4 races run so far for the Trucks. O’Reilly Auto Parts Series practice was affected by a rain shower, but once the weather cleared, Spartanburg’s own Jeremy Clements proved to once again have speed enough to be a top 10-15 car. He posted the 14th fastest time in practice and qualified 17th. While practice and qualifying are generally not something to read into much, the HFT and its technical alliance teams all posted good times in practice. Kyle and Ryan Sieg were first and 2nd quickest in practice despite qualifying 12th and 21st, respectively while Creed was 4th fastest. Sammy Smith qualified inside the top 5 while Sheldon Creed would roll off from the 9th position.

With the temps in the mid 80s and plenty of sunshine, it was going to make for slick conditions along the 25-degree banks of the nearly 6 year old racing surface, making for expectations of a lot of action for Saturday afternoon’s NC Education Lottery 250 – a race in which JR Motorsports was looking for their fifth consecutive victory, and youtube star/social media influencer Cleetus McFarland (real name Garrett Mitchell) was making his first career start in the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series.

The race certainly did have its fair share of chaos. Corey Day showed to have the dominant car early on, sweeping both stages and leading every lap of them. But, during the 2nd stage break, he experienced a mishap on pit road where his rear tire carrier had to dive over the tire changer to stop the newly removed old tire from rolling away and incurring a penalty. That boondoggle cost Day nearly 2 seconds on William Sawalich, who would go on to build a commanding lead on the rest of the field, leading the last 80 laps en route to the 19-year old’s first victory in the NOAPS.

The part about the expected action rang true. McFarland got it all started on the third lap when he decided to run wide open through the trioval and dive to the bottom into turn one to take it three wide. He got sideways in the incident, but somehow saved the car from spinning into traffic and causing the first caution. The first yellow of the day flew at lap 50, when Blake Lothian got loose running in the top line through turn 2, narrowly avoiding backing into the outside wall. That would not be the last time calamity would strike for a driver running high through turn two.

At Lap 95, after restarting stage 2 in the 12th position, Jeremy Clements muscled his way up to 7th before he got loose and found himself running “slideways”. That prompted the 2nd natural caution of the day (i.e. one not for a stage break) and the first of several setbacks for the 51 team the rest of the way.

During the caution that followed the conclusion of stage 2, which Clements rebounded from his solo spin to salvage 2 stage points with a 9th place run to the green and white checkered flag, he was penalized for speeding on pit road, which once again dropped him into the mid 20s and needing to play catch up to get crucial track position back. Jeremy managed to pull back into the top 15, and like most of the field, was forced into a strategy call on how many tires to take during the final caution of the day – brought out by a blown left front that sent Anthony Alfredo for a spin. With no fresh tires remaining, JCR opted to take just scuffed right sides and fuel, which got them into some favorable track position, coming off pit road to restart P4.

But, due to the lack of fresh rubber, Jeremy spun his tires on the restart, which caused him to lose 5 spots, leading to him getting spun around a lap later in nearly the same spot he went around earlier in the race. This time he was unable to save it, backing into the wall and destroying the rear bumper and decklid. After 2 pit stops for repairs and a ton of bear bond and tape, Jeremy went back out and ended up going a lap down with no chance of a finish inside the top 10-15 dashed. He would run the rest of the event for points, briefly getting back on the lead lap thanks to getting the free pass on a late spin by Cleetus McFarland – his third such incident of the day. But, would end up losing it again in the waning laps to result in a 25th place finish.

“We had a pretty good Alliance Driveaway Solutions Chevy until it wasn’t”, said Clements with some humor in light of how the day went. “It would build loose in the run and from the get-go, the brake pedal was spongy. I had to pump them 2 or three times just to get a solid pedal. That made things difficult.”

“On the first spin, I ran off into turn one loose and with my brakes being too hard, I lost control. From that point we just had to play catch up. On the caution before the wreck, we got up front because everybody else got sticker tires (brand new/unused)  and we had to stay on the same scuffed tires because we didn’t have another set. So we ended up getting in the way and used up what little tire we had left. Eventually in turn 2, the 39 (Ryan Sieg) spun us out. I hit the wall and knocked the quarter panel and spoiler off. That made the car hard to drive. We were really loose, we had no side force, and I couldn’t even drive into the corners. It sucks to finish like we did when we could have had a really good day. We just have to learn from our mistakes and move on”, Jeremy later added.

Clements and Cleetus were not the only drivers to experience some chaos. Mechanical gremlins also got an early hold of Sam Mayer. He came in early on with an electrical issue, believing it to be his ignition box. However, changing it did not solve the problem. He would end up retiring early with an engine failure, ending up 38th after running 154 laps. Two other drivers with cars good enough to challenge for the win ended up being taken out of contention late.

Corey Day’s incident in the pits was compounded when he had to come back in to ensure all 5 lug nuts were secure after the penultimate stop, and he was only able to salvage a disappointing 10th place finish out of what was a promising day. Brent Crews, who led 30 laps, ended up having to pit with around 20 laps to go with what was believed to be a flat tire, leading to a 26th place finish. Jesse Love, who held the lead for 15 laps and was a top 5 car for much of the day, experienced a serious vibration that was so violent that he was complaining of being unable to see the track from his visor shaking, ended up coming in to have that checked. He came home in 27th position.

All in all, the 2nd chapter of the resurrection (no Easter pun intended) of Rockingham was a success. It drew a near sellout crowd once again and as the asphalt has aged, the racing resembled the races here from back in the track’s prime in the early 2000’s. All once again giving momentum to the belief that the Cup Series can return here again. But while that may not happen any time soon, Jeremy Clements is adamant that the Easter Weekend triple dip should be here to stay.

“Rockingham is a great track”, said Clements. “It’s unique, very fast with two totally different ends. It always puts on a good race and seems to only get better as the asphalt ages. The place looked packed out. NASCAR would be crazy not to keep coming here.”

With Sawalich’s first NOAPS win, which comes in his 43rd start in the series, he joins the likes of Ward Burton, Matt Kenseth, Ernie Irvin, and David Pearson, who also won their first Grand National/Busch Series races at “The Rock.” Now, the season rolls on as all three touring series take to the high concrete banks of “The Last Great Colosseum” – the Bristol Motor Speedway, which Clements remains confident about their ability to run well at.

“There is not much you can take away from today to prepare for Bristol”, said Clements. “They are two different surfaces. Bristol is concrete, Rockingham is asphalt. But we have a really good package for Bristol and I am licking my chops to get there and go like Hell to try and win a race.”

Jeremy will get to take a crack at it next Saturday at 7:30 PM. As far as the rest of next weekend goes, the trucks run on Friday at 7:30 and the Cup guys will see the green fly at 3:00 on Sunday.