John Hunter Nemechek survived a crashed NASCAR race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway on Saturday to win the Xfinity Series for the fourth time this season.
Nemechek, 26, followed up last week’s win in Atlanta with another dominant performance for Joe Gibbs Racing. Nemechek saved the last warning, the perfect opportunity to prevent another permanent dropout behind him. Nemechek rolled the No. 20 Toyota under caution – on the 10th of the race – and finished the race under the white flag.
It’s a familiar road to victory for Nemechek, who became the first Xfinity rider to win consecutive races this season. At the last restart in Atlanta, he took the lead and pulled away from the competition to claim his third win of the season.
The race was slowed down by wild accidents after the restart and a lot of damaged cars hobbled into the garage. Cole Custer and Sheldon Creed failed and caused the last warning. That was enough to help Chandler Smith, who started from pole, finish second. He was followed by Austin Hill, Daniel Hemric and Sammy Smith.
“I felt like this was the best race car I’ve had,” said Hemric.
Nemechek, the son of former NASCAR runner-up Joe Nemechek, led 137 laps and gave Joe Gibbs Racing a career 199th NASCAR Xfinity Series win.
“I think our first clean race of the year,” said Nemechek. “I’m a lucky guy to get behind the wheel of this 20’s car every weekend.”
JGR could have a weekend win in 20th place on Sunday. Christopher Bell, who won last year’s New Hampshire race, will start Sunday’s Cup race on pole in the No. 20 Toyota.
Smith finished second and then slumped against his car in pit lane exhausted, in large part due to a malfunction in his cooling suit pumping hot water through him and causing exhaustion.
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