{"id":30419,"date":"2016-09-21T10:03:22","date_gmt":"2016-09-21T17:03:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/?p=30419"},"modified":"2016-09-21T10:03:22","modified_gmt":"2016-09-21T17:03:22","slug":"did-nemechek-play-fair-in-canadian-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/did-nemechek-play-fair-in-canadian-win\/","title":{"rendered":"Did Nemechek Play Fair in Canadian Win?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Did
What do you think of the Custer-Nemechek finish at the Canadian Tires Motorsports Park on Sept. 4? (Images from video captures)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

JR Motorsports driver Cole Custer was the class of the field in his number 00 Chevy Silverado<\/a> all weekend at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park<\/a>. Custer led a race high 39 out of the 66 laps raced, while Nemechek led 19 laps. Custer had the overtime race sewn up going into the final turn before the checkered flag. However, Nemechek, in the Nemco Motorsports<\/a> number 8, put and held Custer in the wall until they passed the Start-Finish line with Nemechek in the lead by the length of his truck\u2019s engine compartment.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

How It Unfolded<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Did
Custer has a lead going into Turn 18B.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

Custer<\/a> was on his way to a win and a Truck Series Chase berth. Although Nemechek<\/a> was back there nearing his bumper, Custer was secure in first place – as long as everybody drove clean. Nemechek, with one win already and locked into the Chase, didn\u2019t. This was a must-win race for the JRM<\/a> driver to get a spot in the Chase.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Did
At the apex of Turn 18C, the final turn or the race, Nemechek bumps Custer, turning him towards the outside wall.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

At first, the incident just looked like racing. Nemechek even said it after the race: \u201cRubbin\u2019 is racin\u2019,\u201d which is something you\u2019ll hear almost every commentator say at least once during a race broadcast. However, if you watch the video of the incident, you can see Custer recovering his lost truck as he climbs the track a bit.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Did
In this screenshot, you can see that Nemechek is clear of Custer and in the groove exiting Turn 18C.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

You then see Nemechek take a hard left and push Custer off the track and then into the wall. You can also see his wheels turned into Custer\u2019s truck, keeping him in the grass and against the wall, ensuring his own victory.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Analysis<\/strong><\/p>\n

A number of years ago, something like this was an almost regular occurrence. Drivers got put into the wall quite often. However, in my 30-plus years of watching NASCAR racing, I can count on the fingers of one hand the times where someone put another driver into the wall and then turned into that driver to keep him against the wall.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Did
You can see Nemechek has followed Custer up the track and almost completely out of the groove, although he was completely clear and didn\u2019t need to.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

This incident was nothing but Nemechek wanting the win and the bonus points that come from it, and knowing that he didn\u2019t have the truck to race cleanly and get that win. He knew that he had to play dirty in order to pass Custer. So, he did.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Did
You can see Nemechek has taken a hard left to finish pushing Custer off the track.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

NASCAR withheld their ruling on who won the race for a few minutes after the two trucks crossed the Start-Finish line. Custer was mad, as well he should have been. Nemechek was on his way to the flag stand to grab his ill-gotten checkered flag after the race. You can see him stop, turn and begin to run away. Then you see Custer enter the frame and drop Nemechek hard.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Did
Custer rebounds off the outside wall\/tire barrier and there\u2019s Nemechek to keep Custer from getting back on the track.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

What makes this incident even more difficult to believe is that that same day, Tony Stewart<\/a> purposely turned Brian Scott into the inside wall during the race at the Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway<\/a> on Sept. 4. Tony got loose early in the corner and almost slid sideways into Scott\u2019s car. After recovering, Tony can be seen approaching the left rear quarter of Scott\u2019s car and turning him. The result of this on-track incident was that Stewart and his crew chief were called to the NASCAR Hauler after the race. Stewart was asked during a post-race interview with NBCSN what happened. His response was two words and an evil smile: \u201cHe crashed.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Did
You can see Nemechek cocked across the front end of Custer\u2019s truck, ensuring that his truck will cross the finish line first.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

To me, what we see here is NASCAR ruling on on-track incidents in two separate ways. John Hunter Nemechek is seen to purposely drive a faster competitor\u2019s truck into the wall and then hold it there, and NASCAR gives him the win. Stewart turns a four lap down driver into the inside wall and he\u2019s called to the Hauler after the race to explain his actions.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Did
Cole Custer shows his displeasure with John Hunter Nemechek after the race. I think that Nemechek will have the shorted championship run on record as a result of this incident-Custer is going to make sure that Nemechek isn\u2019t able to advance to the next round.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

What do you think? Was Nemechek right? Was it just \u201crubbin\u2019,\u201d or was it that he wanted to win so badly that he didn\u2019t care about the safety of other drivers, fans, and officials at the track? Personally, I think Nemechek should not have been awarded the victory, and he should have been penalized for dangerous behavior. I also think that Brian Scott should have been called to the Hauler after the Darlington race to explain why he didn\u2019t give a lead lap car more room to maneuver\/pass when he himself was four laps down.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What do you think of the Custer-Nemechek finish at the Canadian Tires Motorsports Park on Sept. 4?<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":30424,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3465,3424,3470],"tags":[3273,2,3512,1074,127,41,1632],"class_list":["post-30419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-drag-racing","category-nascar","category-news","tag-cole-custer","tag-drag-racing","tag-john-hunter-nemechek","tag-mike-aguilar","tag-nascar","tag-news","tag-racing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/featured-22.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42YSK-7UD","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30419"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30419\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30430,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30419\/revisions\/30430"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}