Nemechek cruises to sixth-place finish at MIS

Once Joe Nemechek moved into the top 10 on Lap 87 of 200 in Sunday's Nextel Cup race, he never looked back and went on to take the checkered flag with a solid sixth-place finish.

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The U.S. Army Chevrolet driver ran a consistently strong race that saw him post his second top-10 result in as many weeks.

"This is how we're supposed to be performing," said Nemechek, who collected a season-high third-place finish last week at Pocono Raceway. "We really feel like we gave a few races away this year and now we're back on track. Our qualifying effort's back-- everything's back. For some reason we've missed it for a few races, but not now."

Nemechek started Sunday's Batman Begins 400 in the 11th position but fell back in the opening stages of the race due to a loose-handling race car. An early change to the 01 Chevy set the machine in motion and Nemechek quickly drove toward the top 10.

Running third with just 30 laps remaining, a final yellow-flag was waved and Nemechek brought the 01 Chevy down pit road.

"We got two tires on that last stop with 25 laps to go and for some reason my car got really tight in and loose off the corners," said Nemechek. "I went to pass the (No.) 97 and he took the air off the spoiler and got me loose and three or four or five cars got by me. So then I had to work to pass all of them back before the end of the race."

"I think our U.S. Army Chevy was better than sixth-place," he continued. "We got up there to the front and I thought we'd be a top-two or three finishing car today.

"We'll take it. It's a good run. We're back on track. I really thank the U.S. Army and MB2 Motorsports. I've got great cars and great engines-- we're on a roll.

The Nextel Cup Series will compete at Infineon Raceway road course in Sonoma, Calif. next Sunday (June 26). The race will be broadcast live on FOX beginning with a pre-race show at 2:30 p.m. ET.