Nemechek is finally a NASCAR winner

Patrick Zier

Thursday, Sept. 23, 1999 | 5:41 a.m.

Patrick Zier

NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE

For Joe Nemechek, the road to victory has been long and hard and full of pot holes.

To win in Winston Cup, you must have both cars and chemistry. Many drivers spend their entire career trying to find the right combination and never do.

Sometimes, though, persistence pays off, and if Nemechek is nothing else, he is persistent.

Last Sunday, it all broke right for Nemechek. He had a good car. He got some good breaks.

In the end, he got his first Winston Cup win, taking New Hampshire's Dura Lube 300.

"Any time I get in a race car, I'm there for one reason and that's to win," said Nemechek, who will celebrate his 36th birthday on Sunday. "I'm a competitive person and that shows in everything I do. At the track I'm focused on what we need to do to make the car the best it can be."

Sometimes, though, what needed to be done couldn't be done, or should have been done before the car ever left the shop.

And in Winston Cup now, if you come to the track behind, you finish the race behind, because there will be cars there that get it right.

In the final practice before Sunday's race, Nemechek tried several different chassis setups trying to make the car better. The alterations included "wedge," which increases or decreases the weight over each wheel.

"We made some changes to the car and went out and ran. We put wedge in and did all kinds of stuff, went out and didn't like it," Nemechek said.

"We took part of that stuff back out and ran four more laps," he said.

As the end of practice approached, Nemechek liked how the car performed. "It was awesome," he said.

In the race, Nemechek showed he could contend, consistently running in the top 10 and taking the lead for the first time on lap 93.

Still, as the race began to wind down, it became apparent that Dale Jarrett had the dominant car.

Then, with less than 100 laps to go, Nemechek and the rest got a big break. Trying to squeeze into his pit between two other cars, Jarrett left his car partially on pit road, and was penalized a lap.

Eleven laps later, Nemechek took the lead with 70 laps to go and never lost it.

He jumped to the front when, on his last pit stop, he and team manager Tony Glover decided to change just two tires instead of four, gaining an edge on the competition by minimizing his time in the pits.

"It was a tough call, and I left it up to Tony to make it," Nemechek said. "He asked me, 'Two or four?' and I told him whatever he wanted to do.

"When we turned in pit road we had already run 50 laps," Nemechek said. "Fifty laps is a long time on tires and we still had 80 laps to go."

"But we took two and it paid off for us. If your car drives good and you hit the setup perfect, you can go, no matter if you have two or four. This race track is not really abrasive on tires," Nemechek said. "They slow down to a point and then they kind of stay there. Tony made a good call."

If there was anything missing from the victory celebration, it was Nemechek's parents, Joe Sr. and Martha, who were attending a wedding in Michigan.

Nemechek's mother, Martha, is particularly popular at most races, while his father is more in the background. They have supported their son's racing career financially and emotionally, even though the death of Nemechek's younger brother, John, in a truck race in 1997 took its toll.

"We've worked so hard and have been through so much as a family," Joe Nemechek Sr. said.

"Both Martha and I felt so good for Joe, but it really hurt not being there," Nemechek's father said. "He'll just have to do it again."