TOYOTA RACING – John Hunter Nemechek
NASCAR Cup Series Quotes
FORT WORTH (May 2, 2026) – LEGACY MOTOR CLUB driver John Hunter Nemechek was made available to the media on Saturday prior to the NASCAR Cup Series race from Texas Motor Speedway.
JOHN HUNTER NEMECHEK, No. 43 Pye Barker Fire & Safety Toyota Camry XSE, LEGACY MOTOR CLUB
What are your thoughts on the season so far?
“I feel good and disappointed all at the same time. I feel like the potential that we’ve had, the speed that we’ve been able to have in our race cars at times has definitely been better than years past. I feel that overall, we have made major gains, they’re just not showing up on paper from finishing results, from the point standings and things of that sort right now. We’ve gotta definitely change that a little bit. I feel like overall, performance-wise and potential-wise it’s better than it has been at LEGACY MOTOR CLUB. It’s just now about execution and finishing where we feel like we should. The 43 (Erik Jones) has had a couple decent runs. We’ve had some pretty decent runs. Like I said, but the finishes don’t always show that, so we’ve figure that out.”
How do you come into the weekend with a fresh mindset and fresh approach when it’s snowballing like that?
“It’s hard to be honest with you. I work with a great lady in North Carolina on the sports psych side just trying to clear mental and being as fresh as I can be every single week. You do it long enough, you’re going to have ups and downs and how you get through those is how you perform as a race car driver. I feel like it would be completely different if the potential wasn’t there for sure. I would say, for us, I’ve had some of the best practice sessions I’ve had as far as car speed, fire off speed, long run speed, all of that – throughout this year, so that’s a check in my book. Qualifying – there still has to be a decent amount of effort put in to understand why we’re qualifying where we are rather than just going out early. When you get into that snowball effect, the metrics definitely hurt you from the qualifying side of going out early and then you’ve got to kind of dig out of that hole and we haven’t been able to do that yet. But then you look at the race and by stage 2 and stage 3 we’re pretty good. Our cars drive really good, we’re looking for more potential things of that sort, but the potential is there, right? It’s trying to hit for qualifying and hit it for the first run of the race. I feel like those are my two Achilles heels within LEGACY MOTOR CLUB right now and if we can figure out that first run of the race and figure out qualifying, I think we can have some really strong runs put together.”
What’s the situation with your pit crews and who is developing them?
“It is in house right now. Chris Hall is our pit crew coach. He is the one that’s helped develop all of our guys. We have some new guys and also some veteran guys. I think my front tire changer Scottie (Brzozowski), I think pitted for my dad back in the early 2000’s. He’s been changing tires for 20 plus years and still some of the best metrics as far as tire changers go. It’s pretty cool to be able to have a group of guys like that. It’s the same group that I’ve had the last two years as well. We took everything in-house, I think it was ’25 I think it was when we started taking everything in house. I feel confident in what we’re doing, I feel confident in kind of the procedure and structure of what is going on. Do we need to get better? Yes. But that’s in every forefront within LEGACY MOTOR CLUB. It’s still continuing to build. Your only two years into having pit crews in house and trying to develop guys and things of that sort. It’s tough – it comes down to tenths of a second on pit road. I do feel confident in it. I feel that we can continue to get better. I feel like we are consistent for sure, we’ve just got to get a little bit faster on the racetrack, on pit road, off the race track, kind of everything.”
How do you feel like it compares to last year when there was a lot of promise shown?
“I still feel like there’s a lot of promise. I feel like the potential is there. I feel like we’ve had some of the better cars that we’ve had but it’s taken longer to get there this year as far as in the race. Like I said, I think that our Achilles heel has kind of been our first run of the race. With qualifying, if you qualify towards the back and you’re not close on starting balance or whatever it may be, you’re fighting to stay on the lead lap. The leaders in clean air are coming so fast the first stage. If you go a lap down normally, your kind of stuck a lap down most of the day. It’s frustrating for sure. You look back at lap times on the race track through stage 2 and stage 3 and we’re top 15, top 10 lap times most of the time depending on where we’re at. With that, we know the potential is there. How do we get better to start? How do I get better to start as a driver? As a team how do we get to that point, right? And where are the gains that we’re making throughout the race and how do we implement those pre-race to be able to start closer and get through traffic and things of that sort. Part of it is digging ourselves out of this rut for sure. You look at Talladega and we probably should’ve finished top 10 there at the end and had our right rear tire go flat from a spring in the valve stem core failing with 20 to go or whatever it may be. We’ve just got to get these little bugs worked out and hopefully kind of change our luck. I know that I’ve always said you make your own luck right? But, just trying to put yourselves in position to actually get the full potential and the finishing results that we feel like we deserve.”
Is there any part of you that enjoys the process of digging yourself out of a rut?
“Yeah, I think for me it’s frustrating at times, right? I want to dig myself out of the rut and stay out of the rut to be honest with you. It seems like this year has kind of just been in the rut as far as finishing positions and going out early in qualifying and being group one in practice and things of that sort. I think for me, it’s just continuing to push as hard as I know how. As Jimmie (Johnson) tells me every week, just go be yourself. From getting to this level and winning races through the Truck Series, the Xfinity Series, and everything else. I was just myself. I wasn’t overthinking it, I wasn’t overdoing it. At times, I was pushing too hard, right? But, in the end, it’s all about just being yourself and going out and maximizing your day. The Cup Series is hard for sure. It’s a building process at LEGACY MOTOR CLUB from the ground up. To answer your question, yeah, it can definitely get frustrating being out of the rut, back in it and out of the rut again. I feel like we continue to get better and continue to push. We just need to get that to show up on paper nowadays.”
What adjustments have you made within the organization to help you navigate the changes that are currently going on?
“That’s a great question. I feel like there’s definitely been a lot of changes internally with shuffling people around to different roles and things of that sort. There was another shuffle I guess over the offseason I would say with Erik’s (Jones) crew chief Ben Bayshore moving over to the simulation department. Engineering side, Chad Johnston moving over as technical director and Michael Guttilla now coming over as President. There’s a lot of really familiar faces for me of guys that I’ve worked with in the past in the organization. It’s just a matter of finding out where they fit and how everyone works together and how everyone continues to push to build to get to where we want to be each and every week. So, I feel like with that it’s hard to hit that overnight, right? It’s long-term building and trying to continue to build from the ground up. You think about it, LEGACY MOTOR CLUB really, I guess, started in 2024 and I would say you could kind of throw 2024 out the window and we restarted in 2025. With that, it’s two years now I feel like with the same personnel within the organization and adding a couple new hires that will continue to push our team.”
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