Photo Credit: Noel Lanier
There is nothing like being in the right place at the right time.
John Hunter Nemechek can certainly attest to that old saying after being able to avoid two late race wrecks and holding off Cameron Hayley by 0.31 seconds to win the Great Clips 200 on Saturday Afternoon at Atlanta Motor Speedway. The win marked the second win for Nemechek in the Camping World Truck Series.
“It’s a lot of hard work,” said Joe Nemechek. “I can’t thank this whole crew for having an unsponsored truck. We don’t have a primary sponsor for the year, we’re working hard. John Hunter drives his butt off – I told him to slow down because he kept burning his stuff up. We just kept adjusting on it and working on it. There’s a lot of experience on the pit box. I’m so just proud of all these guys.”
“This pit crew won us this race,” said the younger Nemechek. “They gave us the win. They gained us 13 spots on pit road. It’s an unsponsored truck for us, but can’t thank Jerry, my dad, everybody that works on this thing. I can’t thank them enough. We put a lot of work in with not a lot of funding and are able to run right up here. I can’t thank this guy (Joe) enough. He’s put his heart and soul into me.”
Timothy Peters would finish third followed by Daniel Hemric, Grant Enfinger, Ben Rhodes, John Wes Townley, Parker Kligerman, Caleb Holman, and Spencer Gallagher rounding out the top ten.
The three best trucks on the afternoon belonged to Matt Crafton, Daniel Suarez, and Christopher Bell. However none of the three would make the finish after falling out due to late race accidents.
On lap 111 shortly after a restart, Crafton and Suarez were side by side battling for the race lead when Bell made a rookie mistake and made an aggressive move wrecking his teammate and Crafton. Neither Crafton or Suarez was pleased with the rookie after the race.
“Our teammate turned us around,” Suarez said. “I don’t know why. We had a difficult day learning about everything, and building the chemistry with my crew chief Bono. We made some adjustments at the end and my truck was superfast at the end. We have always been teammates, and I always thought that we had to take care of each other.”
“They said the 4 just lost it, and hooked the 51 into the left rear and turned me,” Crafton said. “It was a long ride down the back straightaway, didn’t know if I was going to hit on the driver’s door. It’s a shame because of the Menards Toyota Tundra was too fast. Just took too long to get by the 19 there and the 4 ran down, and passed us. We definitely had a truck to win the race.”
Christopher Bell’s day came to an end a short time later after a blown tire on lap 122 did in his hopes of scoring his second career victory. Bell’s crew chief Jerry Baxter was extremely disappointed with the outcome.
“We had a fast truck,” Baxter said. “The JBL Tundra was great. We had a lot of issues with some things. Christopher has a lot to learn as he’s young. I hate that we got into it with our teammate and Matt. The guys at KBM build a great truck. It’s disappointing.”
