MARTINSVILLE, Va. – John Hunter Nemechek and his NEMCO Motorsports team are going to have their work cut out for them if they want to make it the Championship 4 at Homestead-Miami (Fla.) Speedway next month.
During Saturday’s Texas Roadhouse 200 presented by Alpha Energy Resources, Nemechek lost his brakes on Lap 37 of 200 and backed his No. 8 Fire Alarm Services Chevrolet into the outside retaining wall. With colossal damage to his family-owned machine, his day came to an abrupt halt and a distant 30th place finish.
“Just no brakes,” Nemechek said. “It didn’t give any warning; it didn’t get mushy. We were just riding around, biding our time and I drove into (Turn) 1 normal and hit the brake pedal and it went straight to the floor.
“It sucks for our guys, sucks for our Fire Alarm Services truck. We had a fast truck in race trim and I felt like we had a race contending truck.”
With two races remaining before the season-finale, the second-generation driver now trails the cut-off line by 23 points.
Barring any catastrophic finishes by his Playoff contenders, the Mooresville, N.C.-native will likely need a win at Texas Motor Speedway or Phoenix Raceway to assure a spot into the final four.
The next two tracks have produced a bag of mixed results for the NASCAR Next alumnus.
Returning to Texas next weekend, Nemechek has just one top-10 finish in four previous starts in the Lone Star state.
The 20-year-old has fared much better at Phoenix Raceway where he hoists three top-10 finishes in his last three starts at the 1.0-mile oval. He owns a runner-up finish there in November 2015.
Pressure is something that Nemechek is used too. He barely made the Round of 6 which started at Martinsville following a distant 20th place finish at Las Vegas (Nev.) Motor Speedway and survived a mid-race crash followed by skating through a massive last-lap crash at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway to finish sixth.
Now, it’s all or nothing for the Gere Kennon-led team.
“It sucks to be out of the race, but we dug ourselves out of the hole in the first round,” added Nemechek. “So, hopefully, they won’t know what hit them next week at Texas.”
In 20 starts this season, Nemechek has two wins, seven top-five and 10 top-10 finishes, but has just completed 83 percent of the 3,001 laps completed this season. He has five DNF (did not finish), including Martinsville.
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
