Ryan Pemberton and Joe Nemeck had the No. 01 Chevrolet in contention for the Chase for much of the year. Credit: Autostock

Shop Talk with ... Ryan Pemberton

During the past two seasons, MB2 Motorsports crew chief Ryan Pemberton has shown plenty of technical ability and even more patience.

Pemberton and the driver of MB2's No. 01 Chevrolet, Joe Nemechek, have proven to be a contender at just about every venue the Nextel Cup Series visits, but misfortunes ranging from broken engines to punctured tires have derailed many potential good finishes.

	Inside the Numbers Joe Nemechek 2005 Cateogry No. Starts 29 Wins 0 Top-5 1 Top-10 8 DNF 2 Poles 1 Avg. Start 16.9 Avg. Finish 18.2 Laps Led 134 Rank 15

The team comes to this weekend's Banquet 400 at Kansas Speedway as the defending champion after a thrilling side-by-side battle to the flag in 2004 with Ricky Rudd, and riding the momentum created by contending for a spot in the Chase for the Nextel Cup nearly to the cutoff.

Pemberton took a break at Talladega to talk about the incentive of returning to Kansas as the defending champion team, Nemechek's strengths on the circuit's intermediate speedways and the emotion of racing for the win.

Q: Ryan, is the "energy bank" ready for a recharge, like going back to the last place you won will always get you a little bit more pumped up?

Pemberton: Yeah -- I didn't even think about it, but about this time last year we started putting 'em together (good finishes). I think we've really been putting some great races together, all year.

We've had our little ups and downs, but we've had a lot of great races all year, and not much to show for it.

Being competitive, week in and week out has kept us going through the whole summer, but we had the pole at Talladega a year ago and then we went to Kansas City and sat on the pole and won the race, then we put together some good performances and great finishes the rest of the season.

We know we can run good -- we just need to put the finishes together.

Q: Is this maybe one of the more frustrating seasons you've had, because you guys have run great only to have crazy stuff happen to keep you from recording the finishes to go with it. How do you deal with that as not only the chief mechanic but also the psychologist of the race team?

Pemberton: I think the thing that keeps you going is that we are running good. It's always frustrating when you run well and you don't quite get the finishes that you want -- that's frustrating.

But what's really frustrating is not running well and not getting any finishes -- so we've got that covered.

We can be competitive and we have been running good, so I think it's all up to us and a little momentum and some luck, or whatever you want to call it, and we can put a string of these together.

Q: The intermediate part of your program has probably been the best and most consistent aspect of it, so how did it get to be that way?

	Ryan Pemberton and Joe Nemechek teamed for the win last year at Kansas. Credit: Autostock
	ALSO •   Pemberton Crew Chief Page •   Joe Nemechek Driver Page •   MB2 Motorsports Team Page

Pemberton: I think those are just best suited to Joe Nemechek -- he's the guy. He likes those things, our motors are really good and as a package we're making good downforce and our cars have been great.

The package for the intermediate tracks is really a little bit easier to put together and Joe really seems like he really likes those racetracks.

When he gets there, the first lap on the racetrack he's on the money and he's on the gas and that allows us to not have to sneak up on it so much, when you know you can unload and be pretty close, right there.

Q: I was going to ask what it is about Joe's style that enables him to excel on these tracks. Is he just a brave, committed wide-open kind of guy?

Pemberton: I think right now there's a lot of trust and respect among everybody on the team, from the driver to the guys working on it. I think that just allows Joe to be able to go to a racetrack, and not have it on his mind of where we're at on the car.

We've been real consistent with a lot of that stuff and I think he's just got a lot of confidence to be able to come right off the truck and to do what he's supposed to do.

In return, that allows us to make better decisions on our end of it. As a package, that's what it takes. Joe has got a lot of good experience, he's very knowledgeable about the race cars and understands every aspect about it, from the time of the day in which you're running to anything else that's going on.

For racing in general, he's really got a great all-around knowledge of the whole sport and that just makes it function well.

Q: You've had the new spoiler, softer tire and gear rule package that you guys have adapted real well to all season long -- so with what you've seen, how does that affect how you'll go to Kansas?

Pemberton: Our win at Kansas was a year ago, and there have probably been more changes on our cars from the beginning of this season to right now than there were from the end of last season to the beginning of this season.

	Joe Nemechek celebrates his victory at Kansas last year. Credit: Autostock
	Inside the Numbers Joe Nemecheck at Kansas Year Start Finish 2004 1 1 2003 30 37 2002 12 4 2001 39 20 Avg. 20.5 15.5 Note: 42 laps led

We had a big change in the spoiler and we have a different tire -- but in reality we always have had a different tire. At the beginning of the year there was a lot of talk, "How about this new tire?"

But there's a new tire every year -- there are new tires all the time. So that's probably something that you guys write about because it was stated that it was new, but it's always new.

So basically, we're coming out here with a different spoiler, from last year to this year, we've made some adjustments on our bodies and then we've (made) more adjustments still, from our first generation of cars.

So going to Kansas, there are lots of things that are different. If we were to go back to Kansas with the same stuff that we did last year, it wouldn't work. We'd get our butt handed to us and that's a fact.

You can't go back with the same motors -- you wouldn't do that. You can't go back with the same chassis, or with the same shocks or springs -- because you'd be equally off, all the way around.

So, evolution of these cars goes on and we've learned a lot. You just have to pick and choose from different racetracks, about some of the things you've done as a total package -- maybe from the first California race, to the last California race and you look at those changes that you've made.

You might apply some of the changes you made from Kansas last year to Kansas this year, so we'll have to unload and we'll have to do some work on it.

Q: Recall your emotions from a year ago as those last couple laps wound down. Drivers always talk about hearing noises, but on top of the pit box, what were you feeling?

Pemberton: It's kind of weird, because it's hard for me to even go back and remember that (finish). I remember it, because it happened, but I don't remember that emotion.

A lot of that was because I had a really bad back at the time, and I was probably taking too many things to keep my back in line, so I don't remember it (laughing), or what happened. I was in a lot of pain back then.

I remember that we were just running out front again and the cautions just kept coming and things were lining up to (potentially) let the race slide out of our hands, again.

It seems like that last 30 laps of the race was a very long time. But it just proved that we're capable of doing it and putting it all together.

We're stronger now than we were last year -- but everybody is. But relative to everybody else, we're a better race team, versus everybody else, this year than we were last year.

We're more capable of putting together wins this year than we were last year. Now we've just got to go do it.

Q: How happy were you to be racing Ricky Rudd at the very end, a veteran driver who has a reputation for being a clean competitor?

Pemberton: That was pretty good. They were both kind of in the same category at the time: Both veterans, both very capable, both very hungry and both very close to winning that race.

I guess that was a pleasure, to race clean like that. The thing I'll always remember is that (Greg) Biffle was coming. He had fresher tires on than we did and he was the guy that I was kind of worried about at that particular point in time.

But Joe just stepped up, and he ran some laps there -- I don't know where they came from. They were probably quicker than they should have been at that time, particularly on that set of older tires, so he dug deep.

He put the car very close to the edge those last few laps and he did what you're supposed to do -- he came home with the win.

Q: All things considered, could you see the same scenario playing out Sunday, and would you call it the same way?

Pemberton: You can't always call it the same way. The tires are behaving a little different and it seems like they're worth a little bit more, from old tires to new tires, in general, throughout the year.

And you can't expect to go there and do the same thing. Every case is slightly different. If everything was exactly the same, you might end up making some of the same calls, but racing changes.

Where everybody is at isn't the same, the amount of cars on the lead lap changes, who in the whole field has old tires and new tires -- everything is so much different you can hardly go off what you did last year or the year before.

You kind of just look at some trends and what's been going on here lately. It just seems like new tires are worth more lately than they were last year, in general, so you're going to have to look at that and consider all that stuff.