KANSAS CITY, Kan. -- John Hunter Nemechek's father first brought him to victory lane at Kansas Speedway almost 15 years ago, when "Front Row" Joe Nemechek swept the weekend Xfinity and Cup series races.
His boy drove himself there Saturday.
The younger Nemechek overcame a couple of late mistakes, then drove away from title contender Daniel Hemric late in the race to earn his first Xfinity Series victory. Hemric finished second while the rest of the playoff field got a major shakeup following a crash on the opening lap.
"It means a lot, especially at Kansas. I forget how old I was when my dad swept the weekend, so it was pretty special," Nemechek said. "The first one is the hardest to get, so hopefully we can go on."
The green flag had just dropped on the first race in the third round of the playoffs when Justin Allgaier got into Christopher Bell, who then backed into the wall. Those two playoff drivers collected six more cars, including fellow contenders Austin Cindric and Cole Custer.
Allgaier, Bell and Cindric were knocked out of the race. Custer lost his power steering and had to make a series of pit stops, putting him 18 laps down and well out of contention.
"Pretty big hit, bigger than I've experienced," said Cindric, who plowed into Bell's car riding along the wall. "Thankful it's the playoffs and we still have a shot. We thought we'd have a shot today but we'll just get ready and move on to Texas."
Allgaier took the blame for the crash, saying "that was on me."
"I hate it for those other guys," he said. "Hopefully we can go to Texas and make up for it."
Hemric started on the pole and all that carnage happened right behind him. He wound up winning the first stage and leading 128 laps as he chased his first career Xfinity win, but he was finally passed by Nemechek with about 30 laps to go and never could give chase.
It wasn't a perfect finish for Nemechek, though. First he rolled through his pit box on a late stop, then he needed an extra stop when his team failed to tighten all of his lugnuts.
And when he parked his car on the front stretch to celebrate, he was halfway out the window when it started rolling backward down the banking -- he was fortunate to leap off without getting hurt.
Sports on 10/21/2018