DOVER MOTOR SPEEDWAY | RACE RECAP
JOHN HUNTER NEMECHEK | NO. 42 HERTZ TOYOTA CAMRY XSE
START: 28th | FINISH: 21st | POINTS: 21st
Due to the weather on Saturday afternoon, John Hunter Nemechek started Sunday’s race at “The Monster Mile” in the 28th position. Hot temperatures and high humidity would ensure the 400 miles at Dover would be a tough one. With no time in the car until race day, a competition caution came at Lap 36, and the No. 42 Hertz Toyota Camry XSE came down pit road for four tires, fuel, and an adjustment for tightness. Nemechek restarted 31st after the caution and fought hard to gain back track position. With 34 left in the stage, Nemechek was back in 28th. After a long green flag run, he finished the stage 28th.
Crew chief Travis Mack called the No. 42 back down to pit road for four tires and fuel during the stage break. Nemechek started the second stage in 27th, and quickly worked his way up to 25th after the restart. After another long green flag run, the No. 42 came back down pit road with 61 laps left in the stage for four more tires and fuel. Nemechek came off pit road in the 31st spot and quickly worked his way back up to the 27th position. The No. 42 worked to find the balance between saving tires and chasing down cars ahead, and Nemechek climbed to the 24th position where he finished the stage.
The No. 42 Toyota came off pit back down pit road during the stage break for four more tires and a can of fuel and came off pit road 24th to get ready for the restart. A quick caution following the restart shook up the field, and Nemechek restarted 25th after the caution, and quickly regained track position to 24th. Nemechek worked to stay in the lucky dog position, while also pulling away from the cars behind him. With 70 laps to go, Mack brought the No. 42 Toyota back to pit road for a green flag stop, where he pulled off 30th and quickly began working his way back through the field to 28th. Almost immediately, the yellow flag was thrown with 67 laps to go for rain. Nemechek restarted 25th with 57 laps to go. Another long green flag run had the No. 42 Toyota battling for track position, and with 21 laps left in the race, Nemechek was back 24th. The caution came out with 17 to go, and a heavy rainstorm came in. After a red flag to dry the track after a brief rain storm, cars got moving again with 13 laps remaining, and Mack brought the No. 42 Toyota back down to pit road. Nemechek restarted in 23rd. A chaotic restart brought the yellow flag back out with seven laps remaining, and Nemechek restarted 22nd as the race entered overtime.
Another chaotic restart quickly drew another caution, and Nemechek found himself just behind the lucky dog, the No. 10. Nemechek finished 21st, where he was edged out of the In-Season Challenge following the final restart.
JOHN HUNTER NEMECHEK QUOTE:
“Long, hard fought day. Not having practice and qualifying really hurt us in my opinion. We had to adjust a lot on our No. 42 Hertz Toyota Camry XSE today. I’m proud of Travis and the whole crew for sticking with it and making adjustments all day to make it better. We definitely made it way better by the end. It sucks that circumstances didn’t work out to go race for a million dollars next weekend. The In-Season Challenge is really fun, I've really enjoyed it, just a couple of late race restarts after the rain didn’t go our way. We got three-wide top on the second to last one, and the No. 47 didn’t have a great restart. The No. 10 got underneath them and kind of forced us up there. The No. 10 got in front of us, and then ultimately, he ended up getting the lucky dog on the last caution. I restarted behind him, and they wrecked off turn two, so circumstances suck, but we’ll move on from it and go have a really good weekend at Indy.”
ERIK JONES | NO. 43 DOLLAR TREE TOYOTA CAMRY XSE
START: 27th | FINISH: 27th | POINTS: 20th
After Saturday’s practice and qualifying session was canceled due to rain, Jones started 27th for Sunday's NASCAR Cup Series race at Dover (Del.) Motor Speedway as the field was set per the NASCAR rulebook. He steadily paced his way up through the field to climb up to 21st by the lap-36 competition caution. He reported that his car was tight in the middle of the turns, and the team told him that he was on track with the leader’s lap times. Jones restarted 20th on lap 43 and ran there until he scraped the wall with only a handful of laps to go in Stage 1. Jones dropped back to 33rd as the right rear gave way prior to Jones’ contact with the wall. He stayed out until the end of Stage 1 before hitting pit road for four tires, fuel and to check the severity of the damage.
After being released by his No. 43 Dollar Tree Toyota crew with a repaired car, Jones restarted 34th, one lap down. He moved up to 30th to be the first car one lap down for the majority of Stage 2, hoping for a caution. As Stage 2 went green, the No. 43 team brought their Toyota Camry XSE down pit road under green-flag pit stops on lap 195 when Jones was running 12th. He cycled through to 31st but was able to work his way up to 27th by the end of the stage, two laps down. Jones told Crew Chief Ben Beshore that he needed more forward drive on the next run.
They pitted once again for four tires, fuel and a small adjustment, and Jones restarted the final stage in 31st, two laps down. An incident with the No. 20 on the opening lap brought out a quick caution. Jones stayed out and restarted 30th, battling five other cars who were also two laps down. As the stage continued under green, Jones pitted during green flag stops with 67 laps to go in the race for four tires and fuel. Weather brought out the caution on lap 337 when Jones was running 31st, four laps down.
The race went under a red flag with 14 laps to go in the race, but NASCAR was able to dry the track to finish. Jones restarted 29th after pitting for four tires and fuel but ultimately ran out of time to get his laps back. Jones ended up 27th after a NASCAR overtime restart.
ERIK JONES QUOTE:
“We honestly had some really good speed in our No. 43 Dollar Tree Toyota Camry XSE in that first stage. The tire wear here was a lot worse than usual, so when we lost the right rear and scraped the wall, it killed our day. We were able to recover and find some speed again but just got trapped a lap and then two laps down. We’ll learn from it and move on to Indy though.”
NEXT UP: The NASCAR Cup Series will head west to Sonoma (Calif.) Raceway next Sunday for the Toyota / Save Mart 350. The race begins at 2:30 p.m. EDT on TNT, MAX, PRN, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio (Channel 90).
