For a brief moment on Sunday in the Snowball Derby, it looked as if John Hunter Nemechek had been holding back and was poised to steal a sure victory away from a dominant Christopher Bell.
He had taken the lead from Bell on the restart with 23 laps to go but smoke began to pillow out from under his Chevrolet. The smoke led to a large fire and the defending Derby champion was hurriedly forced to escape to pit road before it could cause a caution.
As a result of the apparent mechanical failure, Nemechek fell from the lead to 21st and six laps down — not entirely sure of what happened.
“To tell you the truth we don’t really know yet,” Nemechek said. “The brakes faded and I don’t know if there was a crushed line or what, but it caused a fire there at the end. The motor started blowing up while we were leading and that kind of started everything.”
Despite starting at the rear of the field due to issues in post-qualifying tech inspection, Nemechek wasted no time in getting to the top-10. He spent much of the race in the top-5 and even led 18 laps.
And if not for the fire, Nemechek knows he would have been in the running for back-to-back Derby victories either straight up or as a result of the Bell disqualification.
“We had good battles all day,” Nemechek said. “It kind of was what it was because we were fighting as hard as we possibly could there at the end. I thought we were going to have something for (Bell) while we were leading and then all hell broke loose.”
Literal Hell, as in hellfire and brimstone.
The 18-year-old actually spun into his pit stall due to the fluids from the fire and had to rush out of his Super Late Model to escape the flames. One crewmember was even transported to a local hospital to receive treatment to his leg and knee area.
All said, Nemechek was proud of his team but ultimately disappointed in the result.
“It’s just that we know what we have and we know what we’ve built as a team,” Nemechek said. “So having a good car almost doesn’t count sometimes.”
