Nemechek wins NASCAR Truck race
Briscoe finishes 2nd, Sauter in 3rd
MADISON, Ill, June 18, (AP): John Hunter Nemechek gave his dad and truck owner Joe Nemechek an early Father’s Day present.
The 20-year-old driver took the lead with four laps remaining and pulled away to win the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race Saturday night at Gateway Motorsports Park.
“Today was a very special day for us,” Joe Nemechek said. “I’ve tutored him the best I know how and tried to teach him all the right values and it’s up to him to do it on the race track. He’s been able to take it and take it to the next level.”
The younger Nemechek, who qualified through the field as he came out in fifth place.
Nemechek slowly worked his way to the front moving into fourth with 20 laps left. He was third when the only caution flag of the night came out when Josh Reaume stopped on pit lane after running out of fuel.
On the restart on lap 155, Nemechek took the lead over Crafton and never looked back. “I got a run on Crafton and was able to get by him,” Nemechek said. “I just tried to run a smart race. We’ve had really fast trucks this year. Hopefully our luck has changed now.”
Nemechek led 48 of the 160 laps and beat Briscoe by 1.635 seconds. Series points leader Johnny Sauter finished third, followed by Crafton and Grant Enfinger. Defending race champion Christopher Bell wound up sixth.
Briscoe, who won the second of the two stages and led the most laps at 88, made a pit stop on lap 150 during the caution and took on four tires and fuel.
That stop pushed the rookie back to 13th but he ran out of time as he tried to catch Nemechek.
“The first two laps after the restart I had too much front brake in it and it kept locking the wheels up getting into (Turn) 1,” Briscoe said. “The amount of distance I lost cost us there in the end. It was tough and it would have been tough even with those first two laps (on the restart).
“I don’t know if we would have gotten the 8 (Nemechek), but I feel like we would have been so much closer than we were.”
Nemechek
to level as a cross-field move ended with full-back Joaquin Tuculet bursting between two opponents to score and Sanchez converted.
Ford and Sanchez exchanged penalties, before another successful kick at goal by the Argentine playmaker gave the hosts a 13-10 lead midway through the opening half.
The first Sanchez penalty was initially ruled wide by the assistant referees only for the decision to be reversed after the television match official watched replays of the kick.
A dominant Argentina were well worth their lead, but found themselves five points behind following a three-minute purple patch from the tourists.
Ford levelled via a penalty on 29 minutes at a near-full 33,000-seat Estadio Brigadier Estanislao Lopez.
The highlight of the opening half followed soon after as England fullback Mike Brown leapt to intercept a Sanchez cross-kick and raced away to send centre Piers Francis over.
Ford saw his conversion fly right and wide, his first miss of the match and only the second of the series.
England had two let-offs early in the second half as Sanchez fluffed a penalty and Jonny May dodged a yellow card for a late, high tackle on rival winger Ramiro Moyano.
The first score of the half came on 52 minutes when a Francis grubber kick was blocked and flanker Pablo Matera kicked the ball, then caught it and dived over.