Kevin Harvick rightfully earned the headlines in NASCAR’s return to the track in Sunday’s The Real Heroes 400 at Darlington (S.C.) Raceway, but John Hunter Nemechek’s ninth-place finish certainly attracted headlines of its own.
It has been a satisfying start for Nemechek and his Front Row Motorsports team who has claimed two top-11 finishes in the first five races of the 2020 season. Other finishes of 24t, 25th and 25th at Las Vegas (Nev.) Motor Speedway, Auto Club (Calif.) Speedway and Phoenix (Ariz.) Raceway – but boasting his first career top-10 finish had more meaning than just a personal accomplishment for the 23-year-old driver.
The effort was a small victory for his Mooresville, N.C.-based Front Row Motorsports who earned their first non-superspeedway top-10 finish in nearly four years.
“We had a great day,” Nemechek said after his Cup debut at Darlington. “I’m very excited that we were able to come home ninth. My entire No. 38 Scag Power Equipment team and pit crew did an amazing job. Everybody executed all day with no mistakes. We made the right adjustments. Seth and the engineers did a great job getting the car ready for this race.
“The pit crew was flawless and I couldn’t have asked for a better day. It was great to get kicked off on the right foot for these races coming up. Hopefully, we can continue to build on this and create some momentum and continue to get our cars faster each and every week. It’s great to be back and I’m so excited to be able to race again on Wednesday.”
Having less than 24 hours to reflect on finish, Nemechek gave credit to his Front Row Motorsports team for giving him a fast race car.
Outside of Daytona or Talladega, Front Row had not finished inside the top-10 since Chris Buescher finished fifth at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway in Aug. 2016. Adding Darlington’s to Front Row’s achievement as a company – it was just the third time since the team’s inception they had finished inside the top-10 at a non-superspeedway.
The other? When Buescher stole the thunder and won in a fog-shortened race at Pocono also in 2016.
“I feel like we’ve kind of had speed all year and we’ve made our cars better during the off-season transitioning to Front Row Motorsports,” added Nemechek. “Yesterday, we came in with no expectations. We just kind of had the mindset to run every lap and learn the most that we possibly could, and while doing that we made the right adjustments all day.
“We stayed on top of the race track and we kind of ran our own race and it led to us running top 15 most of the day, which is a really great accomplishment for myself and Front Row Motorsports for my first time being at Darlington in a Cup car and just trying to learn.”
Nemechek will return to Darlington – a track he had not favored before Sunday with momentum and confidence on his side, but the team has opted out of bringing back the same race car for Wednesday night’s race.
“We’re not bringing the same car back Wednesday,” he said. “Darlington is really rough on equipment as far as with the sand and everything in the race track being so abrasive, so we’re definitely gonna have to tune it up. Even though the car was clean, it didn’t have any scratches on it, it was very well pitted out from all the sand and what-not.”
While many would be perplexed about the team’s decision, Nemechek is hopeful that they can better their performance with an expanded notebook.
“I think from a confidence standpoint it definitely makes me feel really good to be able to go back there,” he continued. “We have some notes that I think we can get better from, from yesterday, some things that I wish the car would have done a little bit differently.
“It’s an opportunity for us to have a really good notebook. I mean, coming into yesterday our kind of plan as a team to run every lap and learn the most that we possibly could and we were really planning on the second Darlington race being our best race, so to come home with a ninth in the first Darlington and hopefully, we can build momentum and continue to roll on that.”
Another good run on Wednesday could propel Nemechek into a picture that many had completely wrote off the No. 38 team heading into the season.
Nemechek made considerable gains in the race for the Cup Series Rookie of the Year and while much of the class’ attention has been focused on “The Big Three” of Christopher Bell, Cole Custer and Tyler Reddick – all NASCAR Xfinity Series graduates from 2019, Nemechek also found himself on the upgrade list this season and while his Front Row team may not have the perpetual funding or resources that some of his challengers may have – Nemechek proved at Darlington – that there are exceptions to the rule.
On Sunday, Reddick finished just two spots ahead of Nemechek, while Custer and Bell finished far behind in 22nd and 24th respectively.
Another challenge awaits this week, and Nemechek’s ready for the opportunity to take total advantage of that situation.
“It was like the Big Three and me, and I’m like, what about me over here?” Nemechek added. “I’m definitely trying to make a name for myself as far as part of the rookie class, and I feel like we’ve been able to do some of that and we just have to continue to try to do that, but the Big Three definitely aren’t going away.
“They’re hard to compete with and they’re all really good. To be able to continue to compete with them and to race them week in, week out with the circumstances that we have at Front Row, it definitely makes myself feel good and makes our team feel good.”
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
