As Kyle Weatherman chugged from his 2-liter bottle of Coke Zero Sugar following a 10th-place finish in Friday night’s Wawa 250 at Daytona International Speedway, the driver of the No. 91 DGM Racing Chevrolet Camaro couldn’t help but smile. Heading into the week, Weatherman wasn’t even sure if he’d be medically cleared to drive at Daytona.
While he’s still sore following a massive impact into the outside wall at Michigan International Speedway caused by a cut tire a week ago, Weatherman fought through it with assistance from the infield care center staff at Daytona International Speedway, and the 26-year-old racer was rewarded with his second top-10 of the 2024 NASCAR Xfinity Series season.
Cheers @CocaColaRacing Top 10?@Wawa | @XfinityRacing pic.twitter.com/psPR7Zn8QV
— Kyle Weatherman (@KyleWeatherman) August 24, 2024
“First off, I appreciate everybody. Bill over there has definitely been taking care of me over at the infield care center,” Weatherman explained. “I appreciate all of that. Yeah, it was a hard hit, but you know, we put that behind us. [I] got cleared, and put that behind us and came here and had an amazing day with our Coke Zero Sugar/Wawa No. 91 Xfinity car. It was fun.”
For Weatherman, Friday night’s breakthrough was big, mentally. He feels that he and his No. 91 team have had a lot of really good success on track this year, but have had bad luck wipe out most of his decent days.
“We’ve struggled a lot this year, just with finishes. The speed has been there, but putting the finishes together has been tough for us. Getting caught up in stuff or just whatever, right? It’s all happened. This is a good day, we ran up front most of the day, and definitely needed it. It was fun.”
While the end result was fun, Weatherman had some nerves throughout the race due to being banged up in the race car. He knew going into the race, if he sustained a crash, it was probably going to hurt, quite a bit. And on a night, where multicar melees were the main attraction, it was a good thing Weatherman was near the front as often as he was.
“Luckily, multiple of them were like right behind me. So, I didn’t get to see any of those,” Weatherman stated. “I saw them in my mirror, and then there was the one with the 16, and whoever wrecked there at the end. But yeah, I’m definitely still sore. It’s definitely still in the back of my head, but we just went for it, right? And got clear. It’s just sore, bruising, and all of that. Definitely didn’t want to take a hit, but we were going for it. Just needed a good finish, and that’s what we got.”
Another cool thing for Weatherman is that the gutsy top-10 finish came with two well-recognized brands — Coca-Cola and Wawa — on his race car. He was proud to bring the car home in one piece with a solid finish for his new sponsorship partners.
“It’s cool. These are two great partners, really big brands, really fun to work with them, and hope there’s more in the future,” Weatherman said. “But yeah, no, it was really good to give them a good run, and we needed it to.”
When asked how the deals with Wawa and Coca-Cola came together, Weatherman said, “Johnny, the guy who has been helping find sponsors, put that together for us. He’s been killing it for us this year, just appreciate his hard work. These are two fun brands to have on the car, and really cool.”
Weatherman and the No. 91 DGM Racing team will look to carry the momentum of the top-10 at Daytona into next weekend’s NASCAR Xfinity Series event at Darlington Raceway.
