John Hunter Nemechek to drive the No. 45 at Homestead-Miami

John Hunter Nemechek will return to the NASCAR Cup Series, as he fills in for Bubba Wallace in this Sunday’s Dixie Vodka 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

Wallace will miss a Cup race for the first time since the 2017 Ford EcoBoost 400 at Homestead-Miami. In contrast, Nemechek will run his first Cup race since the November 2020 championship race at Phoenix.

Nemechek will drive the No. 45 23XI Racing Toyota as he fills in for Bubba Wallace. Wallace is suspended for Homestead-Miami because of an incident with Kyle Larson at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

The 23XI Racing organization’s two cars will both have fill-in drivers, as Ty Gibbs will drive the No. 23 as he continues to fill in for Kurt Busch.

Busch announced on October 15 that he wasn’t cleared to return for the rest of 2022 and will step away from full-time Cup racing.

Nemechek has 39 Cup starts, with a career-high finish of 8th, twice – each at Talladega in 2020.

Since signing with Toyota in 2021, Nemechek has raced the No. 4 Kyle Busch Motorsports truck full-time and earned 7 wins in 43 starts. He earned a Championship 4 berth in 2021 and remains in the hunt for the 2022 title.

Nemechek also has 16 Xfinity starts – five in 2021 and 11 in 2022 – for Sam Hunt Racing and Joe Gibbs Racing. He won with JGR at Texas in October 2021.