NEMCO Motorsports questionable on Daytona 500 entry
Benjamin Palmer/The Racing Experts
With the Daytona 500 two weeks away from Sunday, Joe Nemechek is skeptical on if his team will field an entry for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season opener.
Nemechek, who competed in 15 Sprint Cup races in 2014, says his team’s primary focus for 2015 is the Camping World Truck Series.
“Everything’s based on funding,” he said. “Right now, the Truck team is definitely priority.”
According to Nemechek, goals for his team in 2015 include running all 23 races, compete for the owner’s championship and see son John Hunter Nemechek score his first career win in NASCAR’s third-tier series.
Nemechek partnered his Cup operation with Identity Ventures Racing in 2014, eventually being bought out of his role during the second half of last season.
“I’m back to having my own team, which we are right now preparing cars for this year,” Nemechek said. “We’re only going to make a few starts this year, but we’re getting geared up again to run a few races out of NEMCO Motorsports and our No. 87 Chevy.”
Nemechek has run at the Cup level since 1993 and has attempted the Daytona 500 every year since1994. The veteran driver says his team will attempt Cup races in 2015 in the No. 87, but uncertainty looms over an attempt at The Great American Race.
“We’re working really hard on it,” he said. “Whether we get it done on time or not, I’m not sure, but we’re trying; just not sure if we’re going to make it for Daytona.”
NEMCO Motorsports will field entries in all three of NASCAR’s national touring series in 2015. But the organization’s Cup effort will be a complete reboot, with Nemechek’s team not having most of its fleet of cars from 2014.
“We’re basically starting over,” Nemechek said. “Most of the cars that were current and were running [in 2014] are all with the other Cup team.
“[It’s] one day at a time. Both trucks are almost finished for Daytona, [we’re] getting our [Xfinity] car together for Daytona, and still working on the Cup stuff. We’ll see how far we get.”
Dominic Aragon is currently the editor-in-chief for The Racing Experts.
From Grants, New Mexico, USA, Aragon started watching NASCAR in 2004 and has been covering the sport since 2009. Aragon is a 2012 graduate of Grants High School and a May 2016 graduate of the University of New Mexico with a B.A. in Mass Communications & Journalism. Aragon has worked in local and national media, as a musician, and an educator. He is co-author of the 2024 book "All of It: Daytona 500 Champion Tells the Rest of the Story" with racer Geoff Bodine.
Aragon, his wife Feliz, and son Christopher currently reside in Grants, New Mexico, USA.
You can reach Dominic at daragon@theracingexperts.net.
