Joe Nemechek began his racing career in the motocross ranks at the age of 13. In six years he took home more than 300 trophies.
He made the switch to stock cars in 1986, and along the way has posted victories in every series in which he has raced. Nemechek won championships and rookie of the year honors in three different series in three straight years -- the Southeastern Mini Stock Series in 1987, the U.S.A.R. series in 1988 and the All Pro series in 1989. He followed that with Busch Series Rookie of the Year honors in 1990.
He led his family-owned team to the Busch Series championship in 1992, as well as back-to-back most popular driver awards in 1992 and 1993. He continues to operate NEMCO Motorsports with longtime crew chief Brian Pattie, which fields part-time efforts in NASCAR's three premier series for Nemechek and selected drivers.
Nemechek made the jump to the Cup Series in 1994. His first win came in the 1999 Jiffy Lube 300 at New Hampshire International Speedway. He found Victory Lane again in 2001 at Rockingham and at Richmond in May of 2003.
Nemechek says winning races is great, but there's more to a racer's life than finding Victory Lane.
"The most difficult job is when your race car is not right and you have to fight the thing to get around the track, or when you have a bad day and crash the car and just try to finish the race for points. Those days make it difficult. Most rewarding is a tough question -- winning a race, or having a dominant racecar is rewarding, but meeting new people every day is also great."
Nemechek is known as "Front Row Joe" thanks to his penchant for putting up strong qualifying efforts. He says that the whole thing started rather innocently.
"That happened back in 1997, right after my son was born, John Hunter. The first person to say it was at Watkins Glen, because we sat on a pole at California and had a number of BGN poles, and someone said that to me at Watkins Glen.
"The following week at Pocono, Wally Dallenbach, my teammate, was on the pole at the time and before I went, the TV crews interviewed him and he said, 'Don't forget about Front Row Joe getting the pole,' and we won it that day and it stuck ever since.
Throughout his racing career, he has drawn on the mechanical engineering knowledge gained when he attended the Florida Institute of Technology before turning to racing full-time. A native of Lakeland, Fla., Nemechek now lives in Mooresville, N.C., with his wife Andrea and children John Hunter and Blair.
