John Hunter Nemechek has been one of the pleasant surprises through the opening two races of the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season. This past Sunday, Nemechek recorded a 10th-place finish in the Ambetter Health 400 at Atlanta Motor Speedway, his second consecutive top-10 finish to kick off the new season.
Nemechek started last weekend’s race at Atlanta from the 22nd position but wasted little time working his way toward the front. Despite flashing solid speed and ability to move around inside the lead pack at the 1.54-mile speedway, Nemechek narrowly missed out on a Stage Point in the opening Stage of the event as Joey Logano worked his way around Nemechek for the 10th position on the final lap of the Stage.
The driver of the No. 42 Toyota Camry XSE would be shuffled to the back half of the field in the second Stage, and would again fail to nab any Stage Points, but he would continue to keep his car clean in a race that continued to see intensity ratchet up increasingly throughout the day and evening.
Nemechek would steer clear of the carnage that would unfold toward the latter portions of the race, and heading into the overtime restart, Nemechek found himself in the 11th position.
In the frantic final lap, Nemechek would knife to the inside of the track as a crash developed on the backstretch. Bubba Wallace would skid down and collide with the side of Nemechek’s No. 42 machine, but Nemechek would be able to keep his car rolling without incident.
As a result, he would cross the finish line, and after NASCAR went back and reviewed the finish, Nemechek was credited with a 10th-place finish.
“I’m not sure where we officially got scored but looks like p10,” Nemechek said after the wild finish. “Solid day. Really proud of Hayden (Reeves, spotter), he worked hard today. Way more intense than Daytona. Hats off to all of the men and women at LEGACY MOTOR CLUB. Road crew, pit crew – everyone did a solid job all day. We were able to keep it straight all day and salvaged another top-10. Two really good runs to start the season and looking forward to COTA next week.”
A season ago, the LEGACY MOTOR CLUB driver only collected four top-10 finishes. Two races into the 2025 campaign, Nemechek is already halfway to reaching that total. After the back-to-back solid results, Nemechek finds himself seventh in the NASCAR Cup Series championship standings heading into the third race of the season.
Now, after two superspeedway-style events to kick off the year, Nemechek and his team will shift gears into a road racing mindset as the NASCAR Cup Series heads to Circuit of the Americas in Austin, TX. Nemechek feels excited to be heading to COTA and hopes to continue clicking off great results.
“I think COTA is going to be a great race,” Nemechek said in a LEGACY MOTOR CLUB race preview release. “I’ve talked to a few guys who have run the cut-through, including Shane Van Gisbergen, who raced this layout in the Supercar Series—it has a lot of unique characteristics and bumps, while the rest of the track is fairly smooth. The shorter course will also make pit strategy more interesting. The No. 42 LEGACY MOTOR CLUB team has had a fantastic start to the season, and everyone is gelling right now. We’re staying focused on the race ahead, controlling what we can, and aiming to keep delivering strong finishes.”
Travis Mack, who took over as Nemechek’s new crew chief this season has a vast background of success at road courses, including being on the pit box for Daniel Suarez’s first career NASCAR Cup Series win at Sonoma Raceway in 2023. Mack also scored pole positions at the Indianapolis Road Course with Suarez in 2023, and the Charlotte ROVAL with Shane van Gisbergen in 2024.
Mack hopes he can help push the needle further upward for the surging Nemechek and No. 42 team this weekend.
“The poles that I’ve got in my career have come at road courses. Just bringing my knowledge of road course stuff, and hopefully, we can get John Hunter [Nemechek] on the same page and have a good showing in the next couple of weeks,” Mack stated.
If they can keep the momentum going, there is a very realistic chance that Nemechek, who finished 33rd in the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series championship standings could be the frontrunner as the most improved driver and the No. 42 LMC team as the most improved team from last season.
