JOHN FRANK NEMECHEK - 03/12/1970 - 03/21/1997
The younger brother of four-time NASCAR Cup Series race winner Joe Nemechek, John followed his brother into racing, running his first race at the age of twelve in an 80 class dirt bike race. After a quick progression to the 250cc class, he moved on to mini-stock cars, where he raced against his brother, and eventually late-model stocks. When he wasn't racing, Nemechek served as the front-tire changer on Joe's pit crew, and was on Joe's 1992 Xfinity Series Championship winning team. He would begin attempting NASCAR races himself, and ran one Xfinity Race at IRP in 1994. He finished 30th after his #89 Chevrolet suffered engine failure. The following season, he began racing the #8 Chevrolet C/K in the new Craftsman Truck Series. In the first year of competition, Nemechek ran 16 races and had two top-ten finishes. He followed that up with two more top-tens in 1996 and a thirteenth place finish in points, running a single truck he built himself titled The War Wagon under his own team,
Chek Racing, Inc. On March 16, 1997, Nemechek was running a Truck race at Homestead-Miami Speedway when with 25 laps to go, he suddenly lost control of his truck and slammed into the turn one wall, driver's-side first, suffering major head injuries. He clung to life over the next five days before finally succumbing on March 21, only nine days after his 27th birthday. Joe was able to pay tribute to his brother by winning a Xfinity Series race that November at the same track (which had been overhauled with a reconfiguration, turning the track into a true oval with six degrees of banking, eliminating the rectangular configuration used in March) that took his brother's life, and also naming his son John Hunter after his late brother. John Hunter has since started racing in the NASCAR series, and is very competitive. For his career John competed in one Xfinity series race, and 43 Truck series events. He posted four top 10 finishes, with a best finish of 7th. Some info from WikiPedia. A video of Nemechek's fatal crash is here.
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