As a driver for Hendrick Motorsports' No. 25 Chevrolet, Joe Nemechek entered the season with the best Winston Cup ride of his career. By May, Nemechek put the team in Victory Lane, winning the Pontiac Excitement 400 at Richmond. He also won three of this season's first seven Busch Series races, driving his own NEMCO Motorsports entry to victories at Texas, Las Vegas, and Dover. He says the key to success in both venues is having the right people in place.
Driving for Hendrick Motorsports is a very special opportunity. The team provides me with definitely the best car I've ever driven, and Rick Hendrick gives us every opportunity and everything that we need to go out and collect trophies.
Believe me, it felt very good to put the No. 25 Chevrolet in Victory Lane at Richmond earlier this year. I was very happy, and I know Papa Joe Hendrick, the team owner and Rick's father, takes a lot of pride in that team. He wants to see it do well, and Rick wants to see it do well, too.
There's a lot of work that goes into running a team, and it's not easy to win Winston Cup races. You have to have everything going in your direction. First of all, you have to have equipment that can get you to Victory Lane. Then, everybody has got to be on the same page and the communication has to be right.
You always hear how chemistry is a key to successful racing, and it's true. Chemistry is a big part of how Hendrick Motorsports runs. We've been very fortunate that my crew chief, Peter Sospenzo, and I just hit it off from the start. They've changed the team around and have really developed it to make it work. As soon as we got the chemistry going in the right direction, it lifted the performance of the race car, the pit stops, and everything. Peter is an excellent leader, and he has some good people around him. We're very fortunate to be together.
It's a pretty neat deal. There were a lot of things going on when Peter came in, and he changed some things around to make him more comfortable. It was like, boom-we had instant results.
Peter is a racer. He just wants to win races. He was unemployed for a while, kind of like myself, and we both have a lot to prove. We want to show that we can do this and we can be contenders in the Winston Cup Series.
My Busch Series team has been around since 1990, and we were fortunate enough to win a championship in 1992. I've got some good people at NEMCO Motorsports, and great sponsors with CellularOne and Nortel Networks. Brian Pattie is the team manager for NEMCO, and Eric Phillips is the crew chief. These guys have been able to give me some good equipment to drive. Carl Wegner does our motors and that's a big part of the puzzle. You've got to have the pieces, and the motors have been awesome. We've just had a lot go right for us this year.