Joe Nemechek's family team won the 1992 Busch Series championship, ran Cup and Xfinity cars through lean years and now races vintage cars and a part-time ARCA entry.
NEMCO Motorsports is a family team owned by Joe Nemechek. It won the 1992 Busch Series title, raced in Cup, Xfinity and Truck events, and now runs historic cars and a part-time ARCA entry.
NEMCO Motorsports is an American stock car team owned by driver Joe Nemechek and his family. It won the 1992 Busch Series championship and went on to race in the Cup, Xfinity and Craftsman Truck Series. Today it competes in historic racing and runs part-time in the ARCA Menards Series.
How did NEMCO's Busch Series title come about?
The No. 87 Busch car debuted in 1990 with Master Machine and Tool sponsorship. Nemechek had five top tens that season and was named Busch Series Rookie of the Year. He rose to sixth in the standings the following year, and by 1992 the team had taken two wins and the Busch Series title.
That title is the team's signature result. Nemechek failed to win the championship again in 1993, after which he left for Larry Hedrick Motorsports at the Winston Cup level, and he drove the No. 87 only part-time in the Busch Series for several years.
A family team that won a Busch title in 1992 and, two decades later, found its best results in the trucks.
What was the team's first Winston Cup stint like?
NEMCO made its Winston Cup debut in 1993 at the Slick 50 300, where Nemechek started fifteenth and finished 36th. He ran two more races that year, at Watkins Glen and Michigan, finishing 21st and 37th. The team did not race in the series again until 1995, when Nemechek moved the operation up to a full-time Cup program.
Burger King backed the car, and Nemechek's 1995 season produced four top tens and a 28th in points. In 1996 he managed two top tens and slid to 34th. Once he signed with SABCO Racing, the Cup program was dropped and its equipment sold to SABCO.
How did Ron Fellows fit into the No. 87 story?
The team came back to the Winston Cup Series in 1999, when Ron Fellows drove its Bully Hill Vineyards Chevrolet Monte Carlo at Watkins Glen. 87 Bully Hill Vineyards Chevrolet Monte Carlo for Ron Fellows at Watkins Glen. Fellows started seventh, led three laps and finished second. He ran Watkins Glen again the next year, but a blown engine left him 43rd.
That same year Fellows added Sears Point International Raceway, the other road course on the schedule. He led the most laps there but finished 38th after a wreck, and he was 42nd at Watkins Glen after axle problems. His final NEMCO start was at Sears Point in 2002, where he began 19th and ended 25th.
How did the Cup team run in the 2000s?
NEMCO did not field a Cup car again until 2005, when it leased a car to Christine Marie Motorsports at Sears Point. Chris Cook drove it, starting and finishing 28th. The team also tried Watkins Glen that year, but it failed to qualify.
The team returned to racing full-time in 2009, when Nemechek came back after leaving Furniture Row Racing. A lease to Scott Speed and the Red Bull Racing Team covered two races, and Speed failed to qualify for both.
What happened to the Cup program from 2010 to 2011?
In 2010 Nemechek ran a full season but managed to finish only one race, because of funding problems. He secured sponsorship from England Stove Works for the Daytona 500 and qualified, but he wrecked during the race. HostGator.com sponsored the car for the fall Talladega race and for the second Texas race, where an engine failure ended the run early.
For 2011 the team was full-time again. Nemechek qualified for the Daytona 500 as the fastest Toyota in the field, but an early accident ended his race. Despite starting and parking most of that season, he qualified for all 36 races.
What did the team do with the No. 87 in 2013 and 2014?
For 2013 NEMCO and Jay Robinson Racing partnered on the No. 87. The car qualified for the 2013 Daytona 500, but an engine failure knocked it out. Maddie's Place Rocks sponsored the car at first, and Royal Teak Collections later became the primary sponsor.
On 31 January 2014 Michael Waltrip Racing said it would partner with Robinson and Nat Hardwick on a full-time No. 66, named Identity Ventures Racing. NEMCO-JRR shifted most of its Cup cars into Identity's shop, which Robinson owned, and Nemechek became the new team's primary driver. The No. 87 continued part-time when Nemechek was not scheduled to drive for Identity.
In 2014 the No. 87 failed to qualify with Nemechek for the Daytona 500 and for the Kobalt 400 at Las Vegas, and Morgan Shepherd finished 43rd at Phoenix. Mike Wallace was entered in the car at Talladega, but the number was changed mid-week to the 49, which Robinson had used for years. Wallace qualified 23rd.
NEMCO later severed its ties with Identity Ventures Racing and Jay Robinson Racing after Nemechek split from the team. Nat Hardwick, the team's co-owner, faced embezzlement charges involving his companies. The No. 87 announced plans to return in 2015 but withdrew for the Daytona 500 and has not run a race since.
What were the No. 97 and the Xfinity No. 7 like?
A second car, the No. 97, was entered at the 2010 Daytona 500 as a safety net for Nemechek and was driven by Jeff Fuller. It did not qualify for the race. Fuller did qualify for the October Talladega event, and Nemechek planned to use the winnings and HostGator sponsorship to fund the No. 87 for the full race.
In 2011 Kevin Conway drove the No. 97 with ExtenZe sponsorship. He was wrecked early in the Bud Shootout and failed to qualify for the Daytona 500. He qualified for several Talladega races, but he pulled the car in after a single lap each time. Bill Elliott took over the car in 2012 with AM FM Energy sponsorship, and Timmy Hill later started and parked it at Talladega.
The team's Xfinity history began in 2001 with the No. 7, co-owned with Ed Evans under the Evans Motorsports name. Randy LaJoie drove it with Kleenex sponsorship, and the car won its first race at Daytona. LaJoie won another race at Memphis that season and finished twelfth in points. In 2002 he took a pole at Gateway and recorded fourteen top tens for an eleventh-place points finish.
After the 2003 GNC Live Well 250, LaJoie and NEMCO parted ways. Greg Biffle was hired for the rest of the season, winning twice and taking three poles. In 2004 the No. 7 ran only twice, and in 2005 it ran more races but still struggled for reliable equipment next to the team's main No. 87.
How did the Xfinity No. 87 and No. 88 perform?
David Reutimann drove the Xfinity No. 87 for four races in 2002, with a best finish of twelfth at Memphis. In 2003 Kyle Busch joined for several races with ditech sponsorship and posted two runner-up finishes, while Reutimann added two fifth-place results.
In 2004 Nemechek picked up a win at Kansas Speedway in the car, and in 2005 he won the pole at the season-opening Daytona race. Ron Fellows returned to the No. 87 at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez that year and finished 41st after a wreck.
The No. 88 car returned in 2001 at California Speedway with Jeff Fuller at the wheel, and it ran again in 2002. Fuller moved to the No. 88 almost full-time in 2004 but did not finish a race all year, with a best finish of 35th at Nazareth Speedway. In 2005 the No. 88 owner points went to the No. 7, which was sold to GIC-Mixon Motorsports, and the No. 88 team was later used by JR Motorsports.
What was the story of the No. 8 truck?
The No. 8 truck was first owned and driven by Joe Nemechek's brother, John. He debuted it in 1996 at Homestead, where he finished seventh, and he ran full-time that year to finish 13th in points. The team was known as CHEK Racing.
Three races into 1997 John was involved in a truck crash at Miami-Dade and suffered massive head injuries. He died five days later. The No. 8 was retired in his memory, and the family did not intend to use the number again.
In 2014, though, the number came back with John Hunter Nemechek, named after Joe's brother. He ran the No. 8 Toyota Tundra in 10 races, with his father driving the other 12. SWM sponsored the truck, and its owner, Sid Maudlin, also owned a share of the team.
The elder Nemechek's best result was a third at Texas. The team recorded eleven top tens and finished outside the top 15 only twice, and the No. 8 finished seventh in owner points, the team's best showing in any series for close to two decades.
How did John Hunter Nemechek's wins come about?
In 2015 Ryan Newman also ran a race for the team at Kansas. The younger Nemechek took over the truck full-time from Gateway, the eighth round. In September at Chicagoland he earned his first Truck win, passing Kyle Larson two laps from the finish after Larson ran dry on fuel. It was NEMCO's first win in any series since October 2004.
Co-owner Sid Maudlin died in December 2015, aged 61. In 2016 John Hunter ran the full schedule and held off Cameron Hayley to win at Atlanta, his second career win. He also won at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park in a controversial finish, edging Cole Custer by 0.034 seconds.
What happened to the trucks in 2017 and later?
In 2017 NEMCO fielded a second truck, the No. 87 Fleetwing Chevrolet, driven by Joe Nemechek. It was the first time a father and son had competed in a truck race since Dave Blaney and Ryan Blaney at Eldora in 2013. John Hunter won at Gateway that season and followed it with a win at Iowa in the next race.
Financial problems hit the team in 2019, which forced the No. 8 to start and park several races. In 2020 both NEMCO trucks missed the show at Daytona, and the No. 8 attempted five more races. John Hunter scored a top ten at Charlotte, climbing from 38th to sixth by the end of the race.
NEMCO sold its owner points to the No. 11 Spencer Davis Motorsports team after the Daytona Road Course race in 2021. On 20 March 2023 the team's return to the Truck Series was confirmed, with Samuel LeComte as driver.
What is NEMCO doing now?
In 2021 Nemechek began competing in vintage races with his old cars under the NEMCO name. Former intern Ryan Gemmell claimed the 2023 HSR Class 8 title in vintage stock cars.
In 2024 Ryan Gemmell drove NEMCO's No. 29 Toyota Camry in ARCA at Watkins Glen. He came back in 2025 for Lime Rock Park and Watkins Glen, and he repeated those two tracks in 2026.
