Nemechek remains ‘calm, cool and collected’ after tough Loudon outing

RELATED: Race results | Playoff standings LOUDON, N.H. -- John Hunter Nemechek, safely inside the Camping World Truck Series cutoff line, was all set for a relaxing, autumnal Saturday afternoon in the New Hampshire countryside. Entering the UNOH 175 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, Nemechek sat a comfortable third in NASCAR Playoffs standings, with a promising past at the "Magic Mile." The 20-year-old had earned three straight top-10 finishes at Loudon, with a pair of top fives mixed in. Midway through Saturday's first stage, things went haywire. Nemechek started to notice things weren't quite right on his No. 8 Chevrolet, came down pit road for a set of tires and proceeded back out. But things didn't improved. The driver then was forced to pull off and head to the garage by Lap 46, where he learned his entry had a broken rear gear and he'd need to sit patiently as the team fixed the issue and his fellow postseason contenders ticked off lap after lap. "Just a mechanical failure; didn't give any warning until about 10 laps beforehand and then it finally broke," he told NASCAR.com on pit road following the race. "I knew something was going wrong. I didn't know if it was a tire; it felt like the fabric had come off the tire and was hitting the crush panel. So, came down pit road and it finally broke about 10 laps after that, with about 10 laps to go in that first stage. "Definitely stinks, but we're going to keep fighting hard. We're not giving up yet. Our team is dedicated. We have a bullet sitting at the shop for next week at Vegas." After returning to the track in 23rd, Nemechek was able to muster a few extra points with an eventual 20th-place finish, but the damage was done. Nemechek will leave the "Granite State" eighth out of eight drivers in the playoffs field, 69 points behind first-place driver and Saturday's race winner, Christopher Bell. Just seven points behind Kaz Grala for the Round of 6 cutoff, however, Nemechek knows the task at hand when the series shifts to Las Vegas Motor Speedway in a week. "In the first round, the biggest thing is you can race your way out of it," he said. "Hopefully next week we can have a good run, get a win and if not a win at least a top three to just make a really good points day out of it and go to Talladega. Overall, we're going to stay calm, cool and collected. We're going to keep smiling, keep joking and whatever happens, happens. Everything happens for a reason." Nemechek struggled with an ill-equipped truck in last year's running of the Vegas race, but had a sterling, fourth-place effort in 2015. He'll need to match that -- and then some, possibly. From the sound of it, he expects to have the right truck to get the job done. "Last year, we didn't take our best piece there and we should have," Nemechek said. "We just made a few mistakes there last year, but this year is a totally different year. We didn't run our best piece at Chicago last week even though I felt like we had a really good truck. It was sitting in the shop waiting to go for Vegas. "I was hoping to win today so we didn't have to use it, but we'll use it next week to do our best and go get the win."