AUSTIN, Texas — In Sunday’s EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix at the Circuit of the Americas, John Hunter Nemechek will start to get the true measure of his performance.
Nemechek and Ryan Blaney are the only two drivers to score top-10 finishes at both Daytona International Speedway and Atlanta Motor Speedway this season. Fifth in the Daytona 500 and 10th a week later, Nemechek is tied for sixth in the NASCAR Cup Series standings with Kyle Larson.
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Success on drafting tracks, however, doesn’t always translate to speed at other venues, and Nemechek is eager to see how his No. 42 Legacy Motor Club Toyota performs at COTA on Sunday.
“I think that the first two races for us this year were about survival and putting ourselves in good spots to have good finishes and have shots to contend for a win,” Nemechek said. “I think that for us, coming into COTA, there’s a lot of unknowns. I feel like last year, we really struggled at road courses. That’s probably one of the areas that we lacked speed the most, and the cars didn’t drive very well, didn’t have very much speed.
“It just wasn’t very good for us. But, with the changes over the offseason (with new crew chief Travis Mack and major turnover on the crew), there’s a lot of new personnel and a lot of new ideas. Different cars, I would say — hopefully, faster race cars than we had last year. I’m looking forward to seeing where we stack up as far as the road course program goes and how much improvement and gains we’ve made over the offseason.”
On Friday, Nemechek indulged in a sort of “branding” different from typical sponsor relations. He went shopping for boots and burned his initials into the leather with a branding iron.
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He did the same with a pair he bought as a gift for Taylor Nemechek, his wife.
Nemechek must have a heavy foot on Sunday after qualifying 33rd for the EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix.