Motorsports

Form at finish could lead to new beginning

Joe Nemechek hopes his strong showing in the final 10 races of 2004 will carry over.

By BRANT JAMES
Published January 25, 2005

CHARLOTTE, N.C. - Ryan Pemberton notices the smile curling up in the corner of Joe Nemechek's mouth. He sees the subtle look in his eye.

His driver is starting to feel it.

"I can see it in his eyes," the crew chief said. "I can tell from the bounce in his step, he's got something to prove and he's got the desire."

Nemechek has reason to smile, perhaps to feel more confident than at any point in his up-and-down Nextel Cup career. Desire may finally be meeting opportunity. It's not so much what he says, but how he says it. Not cocky - never - but with a certain punch.

"I think the biggest thing for myself is I just want to perform," Nemechek said Monday. "Ryan Pemberton and our whole team, we're ready to win."

At 41, the Lakeland native thinks he's entering his salad days. And perhaps with good reason. Nemechek came to the No.01 Chevrolet team in 2003 as the latest in an unsuccessful line of journeymen after regular driver Jerry Nadeau was seriously injured in May 2003 at Richmond. Nemechek ran four races at the end of the 2003 season, qualified inside the top 10 in each and finished 10th at Atlanta.

It was subtle progress, Pemberton said, but important.

"Any time you put two guys together - and you see it a lot at the end of the year - they run a few races and it doesn't pan out exactly like it's supposed to," he said. "Sometimes that hurts you. Over the winter you think about it the whole time. With us, it seemed to click right off the bat.

"We were good right off the bat. That meant that our weeks of winter we had, it kept us going through that and when we unloaded at Daytona, we got right after it. We took a lot of shortcuts in those four weeks, it really helped us out a lot."

Positive results were elusive early last season, however. After finishing sixth in the Daytona 500, Nemechek had a series of mechanical problems - he had four of his six DNFs in a seven-race stretch in the spring and remained inconsistent until finishing sixth at New Hampshire.

Then something happened. At Kansas City, Kan., three weeks later, Nemechek became the first driver in NASCAR history to win a Busch race, Cup pole and Cup race at the same track on the same weekend. He won the pole the previous week at Talladega and finished seventh.

"I can't say one thing turned it around," he said. "I think the biggest change that happened was we did not have failures. All the bad stuff happened in the early or middle part of the year and then everything was great."

He finished the season 19th in driver standings but, during the season-ending 10-race Chase for the Championship, he had three top fives, six top 10s and had the seventh-most points. Nemechek's late-season bounce moved him from 25th in points, but most important it gave him a push into the offseason.

"If we can just be consistent and run the way we ran those last 15 races, we'll be in the top 10," Nemechek said.

Nemechek and teammate Scott Riggs seized on that - and the Hendrick Motorsports engines their team uses - to record several of the top times in testing at Daytona International Speedway last week.

Still, Pemberton asserts, testing times mean nothing, and in the minds of a skeptical racing community, Nemechek has much to prove. The 1992 Busch series champion will continue to prove himself until he is more consistent at NASCAR's highest level.

"I think I know him pretty well," Pemberton said. "I think we all have a little something to prove. Some drivers have a little something on their shoulder.

"A couple years ago, probably everybody was thinking we weren't where we needed to be or he wasn't where he needed to be, and I think right now we have the ability to go out there and run out front every week. We just have to go do it."

[Last modified January 25, 2005, 01:20:40]