John Hunter Nemechek and the No. 4 Mobil 1 team head to Kansas Speedway with momentum on their side coming off their first win of the season at Darlington (S.C.) Raceway last weekend. Nemechek has now strung together four straight top-five finishes dating back to Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Tex. on March 19. With the win, Nemechek jumped three spots in the Camping World Truck Series standings up to second, just 30 points behind Ben Rhodes in first. After seven races, Nemechek leads all drivers in average starting position (7.1) and average running position (7.058), is second in laps led (154) and fastest laps run (49) and ranks third in driver rating (104.2).
The second-generation driver will be making his fifth start at Kansas in the Camping World Truck Series. Throughout his first four starts, he has tallied 16 laps led, three top-five and three top-10 finishes with an average finish of 10.0. While he hasn’t reached victory lane in a truck at Kansas yet, he picked up his first career NASCAR Xfinity Series victory at the 1.5-mile venue in October of 2018 for Chip Ganassi Racing. He also finished eighth in the Xfinity Series event at Kansas in 2019. In two NASCAR Cup Series starts at Kansas, Nemechek has an average finish of 18.0 and earned a best finish of 17th in the 2020 fall event.
The Toyota Racing driver made his fifth NASCAR Xfinity Series start of the season last weekend at Darlington, piloting the No. 26 GR Supra for Sam Hunt Racing. Nemechek earned the organization’s second career top-five finish, taking the checkered flag in fourth.
The world’s leading synthetic motor oil, Mobil 1, will be the primary sponsor onboard Nemechek’s No. 4 Toyota Tundra TRD Pro Saturday night in Kansas. Mobil 1 will return to the hood of Nemechek’s Toyota for five more races in 2022 starting at Worldwide Technology Raceway at Gateway on June 4.
Nemechek is a 12-time winner in Camping World Truck Series action, winning at least one race each season from 2015 to 2018 for his family-owned team, NEMCO Motorsports, and returning to victory lane the last two seasons with KBM. Across 131 career starts in NASCAR’s third division, he has compiled four poles, 1,335 laps led, 44 top-five and 70 top-10 finishes resulting in an average finish of 12.5.
Eric Phillips returned to lead the No. 4 team in 2022. His 42 career Truck Series victories make him the winningest crew chief in Truck Series history, with 33 of those coming while at KBM including five last year. Phillips led the No. 18 team at KBM in its debut season in 2010 and helped build the organization into one of the premier teams in all of NASCAR before departing at the end of the 2014 season. Under his guidance, the No. 18 team won eight races in its inaugural campaign and became the first team in Truck Series history to capture an owner’s championship in its first season of competition. In 2014, the Illinois native led the No. 51 team to an owner’s championship and his team’s 10 wins spearheaded KBM to a single-season Truck Series record of 14 wins. Phillip’s has been calling the shots for 11 starts at Kansas. In those 11 starts, his drivers have tallied two wins one pole, 198 laps led, four top-five, and five top-10 finishes resulting in an average finish of 10.7. He was victorious with Mike Skinner in 2009 and with KBM owner-driver Kyle Busch in 2014. Phillips also has one NASCAR Xfinity Series victory at Kansas, he was atop the pit box for Christopher Bell’s first series victory in 2017.
John Hunter Nemechek, Driver Q&A:
After a tough start to the season, was there more relief or excitement winning at Darlington?
“Relief, there is definitely some excitement there, but more relief after the finishes we had to start the season. It didn’t seem like we were the team that we were last year. We’ve been fast, we were leading laps, we were winning stages, but we weren’t finishing where we needed to. I feel like we finally turned the ship the right way at Darlington and hopefully we can keep the momentum going throughout this eight-race stretch.”
You’ve won at three of the next four tracks that the Truck Series goes to. How much confidence does that give you going into this eight-race stretch?
“I think its huge to get a win to start off an eight-week stretch like this. To be able to win a race and have momentum on your side is huge. I don’t have to have Kyle (Busch, owner) asking me when we are going to win a race — I don’t have to hear that anymore, so that’s nice. We just have to keep on with it. We’ve been really fast all year, we’ve won stages, we’ve led laps, we’ve been in contention all year, we just haven’t been able to finish races. I couldn’t get past two to go there for a while earlier in the year, but luckily, we were able to do that at Darlington and the last few races. Momentum is huge in this sport; I’m looking forward to carrying it through the summer months and having some really good runs. That’s what it is going to take to continue to accumulate some points to go after the regular season championship and try and win some more races. All of our focus is really on the playoffs. Last year I felt like we peaked too early in the season and had a slump through the playoffs and this year we started off kind of slow. Yes, it sucks to start off slow, but hopefully that’s a good omen for the rest of the year.”
John Hunter Nemechek Career Highlights:
Twelve-time winner in Camping World Truck Series action, winning at least one race each season from 2015 to 2018 for his family-owned team, NEMCO Motorsports. Across 131 career starts in NASCAR’s third division, has compiled four poles, 1,335 laps led, 44 top-five and 70 top-10 finishes resulting in an average finish of 12.5. Registered a career-high and series-leading five victories in 2021 and earned the NCWTS Regular Season championship and third in the final standings after qualifying for the Championship Four for the first time in his career.
Produced three top-10 finishes and an average result of 22.4 while competing for rookie of the year honors in the NASCAR Cup Series in 2020. He recorded a career-best eighth-place finish twice, both coming at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway.
Across 61 career XFINITY Series starts, has totaled two wins, one pole, 510 laps led, 17 top-five and 36 top-10 finishes resulting in an average finish of 11.8.
John Hunter Nemechek’s No. 4 Mobil 1 Tundra TRD Pro:
KBM-38: The No. 4 Mobil 1 team will unload KBM-38 for Saturday’s race at Kansas. Nemechek piloted “38 special” twice in 2021, including his win at Texas Motor Speedway last June where he led 67 laps. Overall, KBM-38 has collected seven wins across 22 career starts. Three with Christopher Bell and one each with Kyle Busch, William Byron, Noah Gragson, and John Hunter Nemechek.
KBM drivers have collected five wins, four poles, 696 laps led, 15 top-five and 24 top-10 finishes resulting in an average finish of 9.6 across 37 starts at Kansas Speedway.
Owner-driver Kyle Busch has collected three wins at Kansas (2014, 2017 and 2021). Noah Gragson led a race-high 128 laps and swept all three stages in the 2018 event and William Byron earned his first career Camping World Trucks victory there in 2016.
KBM holds the Camping World Truck Series records for most career wins (93) and most wins in a single season (14 in 2014). With his victory at Atlanta Motor Speedway on March 19, Corey Heim became the 18th different driver to win a Truck Series event for KBM. In addition to collecting a series-record seven Owner’s Championships, the organization has produced two championship-winning drivers: Erik Jones (2015) and Christopher Bell (2017).
The No. 4 has 17 career victories at KBM and was the number for both of the organization’s driver championships.
