Hornish earns emotional first home win at Mid-Ohio

In just his third start of the year, Sam Hornish Jr. earned an emotional first NASCAR Xfinity Series victory in more than a year and his first at his home Mid-Ohio track.

Hornish led a race-high 61 of 75 laps in the Mid-Ohio Challenge, beating Daniel Hemric by 1.335 seconds. The win on the 2.258-mile circuit was his fifth series victory.

"It's right up there," Hornish told NBCSN. "For me a lot of times, it seems like that's the only way we can get them. We very seldom, even back to when I was running IndyCars, squeaked through for one. It seemed like it had to be there and be there all day long trying to keep everything happening. I don't back into them too often.

"To run here, to be at Mid-Ohio, a place I remember having so many memories as a kid, and I've ran so many different classes here, to not ever to have been able to win and to be able to check that off the list today, that's a big one for me."

Hornish's previous starts this year, both at Iowa, ended in crashes. Now running a limited schedule, his last win came in a Joe Gibbs Racing entry at Iowa on June 19, 2016.

"As the calendar goes around another year, you start wondering how many opportunities you're going to have like today," Hornish told NBCSN. "I'm glad to be here, that's for sure."

Matt Tifft, James Davison and Andy Lally all had career-best finishes to round out the top five.

Lally now has four top-10 finishes in eight career Xfinity Series starts. Saturday was his first start of the season.

"It feels wonderful. To come here – I get to do one race a year – it's my favorite kind of racing on the planet and to get my first top five in NASCAR, checks it off the list," Lally said. "We were seventh here last year. I said I was going to be disappointed if we didn't have something better than that, so I'm happy with that."

RACER's Kelly Crandall contributed to this report.