The son of Oklahoma City mayor Ron Norick,[1] Lance Norick began his career in motocross,[2] before moving to Formula Ford 2000 open-wheel cars, where he was a teammate to the son of Johnny Rutherford,[3] before moving to the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series for the 1996 season.[4]
Norick's late 1996 truck.Norick's 1997 truck.Norick (No. 90) racing Terry Cook (No. 88) in 1998.
For 1997 Norick ran just fifteen races but gained financial backing from the National Hockey League, which arranged for a different team to be featured on the truck at each event.[8] Norick posted a best finish of the season at Homestead, in the second race of the year and the first with NHL sponsorship, finishing tenth; Norick finished the season 25th in series points.[9] The NHL returned with a full season's sponsorship for 1998; Norick's team, based in Blythe, California, added a second truck for veteran Butch Miller, with sponsorship from Dana.[10] Norick had a best finish of seventh at Sears Point International Raceway, a new career best, but failed to qualify for two races; he finished 23rd in the series standings at the end of the year.[11] Norick also competed in six events in the NASCAR Winston West Series during the 1998 season, posting a best finish of seventh at California Speedway in July.[12][13]
Norick started 1999 with sponsorship from Oklahoma City-based Big Daddy's BBQ Sauce; the company ran into issues with its racing program,[14] and the sponsorship deal was dropped after eight races of the 24-race schedule, leaving Norick's team, once again a single-truck effort, to run most of the year unsponsored. Norick's best finish of the year was ninth at Watkins Glen; he finished 20th in series points.[15] At Watkins Glen, Norick was the first Truck Series driver to operate his vehicle under racing conditions while using rain tires, when practice sessions were run under sprinkly conditions.[16] His team also switched from Dodge to Chevrolet during the season, although it also ran a Ford in a race at Gateway International Raceway.[15]
In 2000 with backing from Aventis Behring,[17] Norick qualified for every race on the Truck Series season schedule for the first time in his career, and finished sixteenth in points.[18] Norick was involved in a major wreck at the season-opening Daytona 250 at Daytona International Speedway, suffering burns to his neck.[19]
In 2001 Norick posted his best career finish overall in the Craftsman Truck Series, finishing third at the short-lived Chicago Motor Speedway;[20] finishes of fourth in the season-opening race at Daytona and fifth in October at Texas Motor Speedway proved to be the only other top five finishes he would score in his career in the series, pointing the way to Norick's scoring a career best in the series points standings, finishing eleventh at the end of the season.[21] Norick returned to the series in 2002 with sponsorship from Express Personnel Services;[22] he scored five top-ten finishes during the season, finishing 13th in points;[23] however additional funding for continuing in the series failed to materialise, and Norick's team closed at the end of the year, the team being sold off.[24]
Norick's debut in Busch Series competition was originally scheduled to be at Bristol Motor Speedway in March, but due to a lack of testing time his debut was moved back one week to the O'Reilly 300 at Texas Motor Speedway.[29] Norick's best finish with Carroll Racing came at Nashville Superspeedway in April, where he finished 17th;[30] after five races with the team, and a DNQ at Charlotte Motor Speedway, Norick moved to Braun Racing for the final two events of his 2003 season, finishing 31st at Daytona and 29th at Chicagoland Speedway in July;[31] these were the final NASCAR-sanctioned events that Norick would compete in.
Norick currently resides in Oklahoma; he is married to Darcey, who also races remote-control cars, and both are involved in mounted shooting events.[35] He is also involved in the construction industry, and in 2011 jointly applied to operate a medicinal marijuana dispensary in Scottsdale, Arizona.[36] He opened a hardware store in North Oklahoma City in 2018.[37] He also competes in regional sprint car competition.[38]
Motorsports career results
NASCAR
(key) (Bold – Pole position awarded by qualifying time. Italics – Pole position earned by points standings or practice time. * – Most laps led.)
^"The Next Generation: Rutherford IV takes his chances behind the wheel in Dallas Grand Prix". Fort Worth Star-Telegram. September 18, 1993. pp. Sports 1.
^ abGrabowski, Steven (May 30, 1997). "Puck fuels truck for Norick". Boston Herald. p. 85.
