Published Wednesday, December 28, 2005

Lakeland's Joe Nemechek Reflects on Season of Near-Misses

By Donna Fellows
The Ledger

Like every driver on the demanding NASCAR Nextel Cup circuit, Joe Nemechek needs to have certain things on his side to be successful. Driving skill? Check. A good team? Check.

Strong financial backing? Check.

Luck?

The pits.

"It seemed like we had some terrible luck in a lot of races," said Nemechek, a Lakeland native and driver of the Team Centrix Financial No. 01 U.S. Army Chevrolet Monte Carlo.

In race after race during the 2005 Nextel Cup season, Nemechek proved he had a car that could contend for the win, only to see bad racing luck end his day early or relegate him to the back of the pack.

In the Auto Club 500 last February at California Speedway, Nemechek was leading the race when he blew an engine on lap 173. He finished the 250-lap race 39th, even though he led more laps, 63, than any other driver.

Nemechek's misfortunes continued to the next race, the UAW-DaimlerChrysler 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in March. Nemechek had steered his Monte Carlo into third place late in the race. However, on Nemechek's last pit stop of the day, he received a bad set of tires. As a result, he was nearly lapped and saw his potential topfive performance turn into a 19th-place finish.

The next week, Atlanta Motor Speedway wasn't any friendlier to Front Row Joe. Nemechek was running as high as second in Atlanta's Golden Corral 500 before a hole in the radiator sent him behind the wall for good on lap 280 of the 325-lap race. Nemechek finished 35th.

During the next two races, at Bristol and Talladega, Nemechek looked to have solid cars but was caught up in early wrecks. He finished 33rd and 31st, respectively.

Things appeared to be looking up for the No. 01 U.S. Army team at Charlotte over Memorial Day weekend, however.

With 10 laps remaining, Nemechek was out in front by more than half a second, a mar- gin that had held for more than 20 laps.

With eight laps to go, however, Nemechek's streak of bad racing luck continued. As he steered into turn three, his Chevrolet Monte Carlo ran over a piece of debris from Mark Martin's car. The debris cut Nemechek's rear, right-side tire and sent him hard into the outside retaining wall. Suddenly, a sure win became an 18th-place finish for the U.S. Army team.

And there were others. At least half a dozen times throughout the season, Nemechek appeared to be a top-10 threat only to have bad luck negate his strong performances.

"That's probably the most disappointing part in all of it," said Nemechek of having to overcome bad racing luck so frequently during what could have been a break-out year for the Lakeland native.

If Nemechek had finished in the top 10 during the three early races at California, Las Vegas and Atlanta in which he was running strong, he would have tallied more than enough points to make the Chase at the end of the season.

Nemechek said that having a car that performs strong week after week, but still can't seem to make it into Victory Lane, is sometimes tougher than just knowing that you didn't have a strong enough car to contend.

"When you're out there dominating races, then all of a sudden, something happens -- man, that's pretty hard to fix," said Nemechek.

Through it all, however, Nemechek managed to salvage a respectable season.

Two top-five finishes and nine top-10s was enough to help Nemechek finish the season 16th in points. That was three positions higher than his 2004 finish and nearly matched his best career season in 2000 when he finished 15th while driving for Andy Petree.

The 16th-place finish earned Nemechek $4.8 million in prize money for the season, including a Nextel Cup post-season finishing bonus of $605,000.

"It was a decent year," said Nemechek. "We definitely thought it could have been better."

Still, Nemechek seems pleased about the direction that his U.S. Army team is heading in and optimistic that, the way this team is gelling, the upcoming season should hold strong performances for the No. 01 Chevrolet Monte Carlo.

"I'm hoping it's going to start very good, kind of how this season started," said Nemechek. "It's one of those things, you've got to wait and see how stuff is going to turn out."

Nemechek won't be waiting very long. This January, he's heading to Daytona for some preseason testing. Then he'll be back at Daytona in February to kick off the 2006 season with the Daytona 500.

And just like the 2005 season, expect Nemechek to push himself, his team and his car to the front every opportunity that he gets.

"I put more pressure on myself only because I want to run so well," said Nemechek.

Maybe there was a four-leaf clover or rabbit's foot under Nemechek's Christmas tree. With a little bit of luck, 2006 could be a good year for one of Lakeland's most notable sons.