John Hunter Nemechek: Driver, No. 4 Mobil 1 Toyota
NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Overview:
Event: Rackley Roofing 200, Race 14 of 23, 150 Laps – 45/50/55; 199.5 Miles
Location: Nashville (Tenn.) Superspeedway (1.33-mile D-shaped oval)
Date/Broadcast: June 24, 2022, at 8 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR 90
Neme’chek’ the Facts:
With a runner-up finish at Knoxville (Iowa) Raceway this past weekend, John Hunter Nemechek and the No.4 Mobil 1 team jumped to the top of the board in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series championship standings. Nemechek now enters Nashville (Tenn.) Superspeedway with a five-point lead with just three races remaining in the regular season. In his lone NASCAR Camping World Truck Series start at Nashville in 2021, Nemechek started 34th and drove his way up to a 10th-place finish.
Nemechek has accumulated a series high 88 points over the past two races to catapult to the top of the leaderboard. The talented wheelman has also finished in the top-10 in nine out of the last 10 events and leads the NASCAR Truck Series regulars in poles (four), average starting position (6.6), and average running position (8.431).
Friday’s race will be the second of three races in the Truck Series Triple Truck Challenge, with an extra $50,000 on the line for the winner. The final race of the Triple Truck Challenge will be July 9 at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in Lexington, Ohio. If a driver can win two of the three races, they will be awarded an extra $50,000 totaling $150,000 and if the same driver wins all three races, they earn a $300,000 bonus bringing the total to $500,000. KBM’s Corey Heim collected the extra money with his win at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway on the first leg of the Triple Truck Challenge.
The 25-year-old driver is a 12-time winner in Camping World Truck Series action, winning at least one race each season from 2015 to 2018 for his family-owned team, NEMCO Motorsports, and returning to victory lane in 2021 and 2022 with KBM. Across 137 career starts in NASCAR’s third division, he has compiled six poles, 1,369 laps led, 46 top-five and 75 top-10 finishes resulting in an average finish of 12.4.
While the Camping World Truck series will be off next week, Nemechek is slated to make his sixth Xfinity Series start of the season at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wis. piloting the No. 26 GR Supra for Sam Hunt Racing. In his first five Xfinity Series starts this season; the second-generation driver has led 146 laps and has three top-five and three top-10 finishes resulting in an average finish of 12.0.
Eric Phillips returned to lead the No. 4 team in 2022. His 42 career Truck Series victories make him the winningest crew chief in Truck Series history, with 33 of those coming while at KBM including five last year. Phillips led the No. 18 team at KBM in its debut season in 2010 and helped build the organization into one of the premier teams in all of NASCAR before departing at the end of the 2014 season. Under his guidance, the No. 18 team won eight races in its inaugural campaign and became the first team in Truck Series history to capture an owner’s championship in its first season of competition. In 2014, the Illinois native led the No. 51 team to an owner’s championship and his team’s 10 wins spearheaded KBM to a single-season Truck Series record of 14 wins. Phillip’s has called the shots for 11 starts at Nashville Superspeedway. In those 11 starts, his drivers have tallied two wins (Kyle Busch – 2010 & 2011), two poles, 271 laps led, two top-five and four top-10 finishes resulting in an average finish of 15.3. Busch’s win in 2010 was the first career Truck Series win for KBM.
The world’s leading synthetic motor oil, Mobil 1, will adorn the hood of the No. 4 Tundra TRD Pro this Saturday at Knoxville Raceway. Mobil 1 returns as the primary sponsor of Nemechek’s Toyota for two more races in 2022; July 9 at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course and Oct. 1 at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway.
John Hunter Nemechek, Driver Q&A:
Is there another track on the schedule that you would compare to Nashville or is it unique?
“I think Nashville itself is unique; concrete racetrack, over a mile, kind of races like a superspeedway a little bit with a little bit of short track corners where you use break. There’s a lot of off throttle time compared to our normal mile-and-a-half racetracks that we go to. It’s a little bit different for us, I struggled there last year, I feel like we struggled a little bit as a team there last year, so we have our work cut out for us this weekend but looking forward to going there and trying to get KBM another victory at Nashville.”
It’s the second race of the Triple Truck Challenge, do you look forward to competing for the extra cash?
“Yeah, for sure. I can’t thank Camping World and everyone enough that helps put together the Triple Truck Challenge to put a little bonus incentive of cash there. It’s $5ok if you win the race and even more if you win the Triple Truck Challenge so huge shoutout to Camping World, Marcus Lemonis, and everyone involved that puts together this amazing program.”
You reclaimed the points lead after Knoxville. What do you have to do over the next three races to bring home the regular season championship?
“I think for us, we just need to have consistent runs and not make mistakes. We’ve got to be fast, and we know we have trucks capable of doing that, so not dialing ourselves out during practice, putting good races together, finishing up high in the stages and having good results at the end of the race. Just have to put everything together, execute, and not beat ourselves and not make any mistakes.”
John Hunter Nemechek Career Highlights:
- Twelve-time winner in Camping World Truck Series action, winning at least one race each season from 2015 to 2018 for his family-owned team, NEMCO Motorsports. Across 137 career starts in NASCAR’s third division, has compiled six poles, 1,369 laps led, 46 top-five and 75 top-10 finishes resulting in an average finish of 12.4. Registered a career-high and series-leading five victories in 2021, earned the NCWTS Regular Season championship and finished third in the final standings after qualifying for the Championship Four for the first time in his career.
- Produced three top-10 finishes and an average result of 22.4 while competing for rookie of the year honors in the NASCAR Cup Series in 2020. He recorded a career-best eighth-place finish twice, both coming at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway.
- Across 61 career XFINITY Series starts, has totaled two wins, one pole, 510 laps led, 17 top-five and 36 top-10 finishes resulting in an average finish of 11.8.
John Hunter Nemechek’s No. 4 Mobil 1 Tundra TRD Pro:
KBM-38: The No. 4 Mobil 1 team will unload KBM-38 for Friday’s race at Nashville. Nemechek raced this Tundra once earlier in the season at Kansas where he earned the pole award and went on to finish sixth. Overall, “38 special” has collected seven wins across 23 career starts. Three with Christopher Bell and one each with Kyle Busch, William Byron, Noah Gragson, and John Hunter Nemechek.
KBM-38 Performance Profile
KBM Notes of Interest:
- KBM drivers have collected two wins, two poles, 319 laps led, two top-five and four top-10 finishes resulting in an average finish of 12.0 across eight starts at Nashville.
- Owner-driver Kyle Busch picked up the organization’s first ever victory at the 1.33-mile oval in 2010 and won again in 2011.
- KBM holds the Camping World Truck Series records for most career wins (95) and most wins in a single season (14 in 2014). With his victory at Atlanta Motor Speedway on March 19, Corey Heim became the 18th different driver to win a Truck Series event for KBM. In addition to collecting a series-record seven Owner’s Championships, the organization has produced two championship-winning drivers: Erik Jones (2015) and Christopher Bell (2017).
- The No. 4 has 17 career victories at KBM and was the number for both of the organization’s driver championships.
