Perfect pit strategy vaults Nemechek to win in The LiUNA! at Las Vegas over stout teammate Chandler Smith
By Kyle Foster, photo courtesy of Eric Thompson (Shamboozled.com)
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LAS VEGAS-There are times when you have a car worthy of winning and it doesn’t happen. The opposite is also true as sometimes they fall in your lap.
On Saturday afternoon at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, both instances were true for a pair of Joe Gibbs Racing drivers. A perfect pit strategy and a fast car gave John Hunter Nemechek the win in The LiUNA!
As the laps wound down, Nemechek was able to take the lead after Josh Williams pitted for fuel and gave the lead to Nemechek.
From there, he cruised to the win by 4.360 seconds over defending NASCAR Xfinity Series champion Cole Custer. It was his 10th win in the Xfinity Series as well.
“It’s big,” Nemechek said of winning 10 races and getting to 43rd all-time in series wins. “Man, I love winning. I love winning races. But to be able to win 10 XFINITY races is a pretty big accomplishment. I really enjoy being able to race in the NASCAR Xfinity Series. These cars are so fun to drive.”
Throughout the day, Nemechek was always up towards the front after starting in 12th. He also finished in both stages. He also led 4 times for 99 laps, the most in the field.
“I needed more (adjustments),” Nemechek explained. “So we didn’t go far enough. But we definitely went in the right direction today. That is for sure.”
The win put the No. 20 car 6th in Xfinity Series owner points as well. That car can win an owner’s points title but no driver title.
On the other end of this is his teammate Chandler Smith. He started second and won both stages. However, the final stage was full of a bunch of issues for Smith. After adjusting the penultimate pit stop, he called for an adjustment that forced the car to drop like a rock.
“We just overadjusted for it to get a little tighter so we freed it up and I feel like the track actually got freer,” Smith explained of the second to last stop. “So went the wrong way but notes tell us to get tighter here.”
Maybe the thing that made this happen was the large gusts of wind throughout the day. It was almost like a game of Russian roulette as to how much the wind was going to bother the car.
“It definitely did,” Smith said of the adjustment and if the wind bothered the late tweak on the car. “But it didn’t help anything. But everybody’s fighting it.”
He also heard a loud pop on the right rear of his car. It is still unknown what caused it but this also bothered the handling of the car. That being said, he still brought it home in third.
“We had some going on mechanical we don’t really know yet till we get back to the shop,” Smith said of the possible mechanical issue. “But really proud of everybody at Joe Gibbs Racing.”
This good day gave Smith a boost to second in the points standings as well. But Smith felt like there was more left to accomplish. He led 4 times for 74 laps, which was the second most on the day.
“It was a solid day,” Smith explained. “It definitely could’ve been worse.”
Finishing in fourth was Austin Hill. After winning the first two races, Hill had a good car. In the stages, he finished third and sixth. This kept him in the lead of the driver points by 22 points over Smith.
Rounding out the top five was fall 2023 winner, Riley Herbst. He finished fourth and third in the stages and remains third in points for the season.
In the race, there were 12 lead changes among five drivers. Justin Allgaier was the only other driver to lead laps and that came on a green flag pit cycle. At this point, he was running 33-second lap times compared to the leaders who were at 31-second laps.
It was also a very clean race as there were two cautions for incidents as part of the four overall with the stage breaks leading to a total of 22 laps under yellow. Five cars dropped to the back of the field before the race.
The NASCAR Xfinity Series will be back in action next Saturday at 1:30 pm for the Call 811.com Every Dig. Every Time. 200 at Phoenix Raceway. It will be on FS1.
