Nemechek picks up first Grandfather Clock trophy with Truck Series win

Nemechek outdueled newcomer Kyle Benjamin in a drag race on the final lap for the win and the coveted clock trophy. He started the race eighth.

“It’s something that I’ve been eyeing since I was a kid. It’s something that dad never got in his career,” John Hunter said of the grandfather clock, given out to the winners at Martinsville. “It’s something I’ve wanted every time I look at it so it feels good to finally take one home.”

John Hunter said the clock will go in the shop for a couple of weeks, and then head back to his house.

The younger Nemechek has been strong at Martinsville in the past, coming away with three top 5 finishes in nine races prior to this weekend, including two second and one third place.

The Nemecheks were able to pick up another CWTS win, despite being one of the smaller teams on the circuit. John Hunter said there’s only a handful of people working in the shops at Nemco, and they’re all able to easily bounce ideas off of each other and work together in a tight family atmosphere.

But the team would be nothing without Joe Nemechek.

“Really it all started with Dad and he has given me everything I’ve ever needed to continue to progress throughout my career,” John Hunter said. “I think all the guys in the shop are some of the hardest workers we have. We just kept progressing and last year we were able to win some races… This is just momentum for us and our truck team and I feel really good.”

John Hunter is racing a partial schedule between Xfinity and Trucks this season, and will race next in the Xfinity Series at Bristol on April 14. But the win gives Nemco a spot in the Truck Series Chase, so the team expects to keep racing trucks through the season, with either John Hunter or Joe behind the wheel.

Benjamin finishes second in first Martinsville trip

Benjamin was racing in his CWTS debut, and led 74 laps total late in the race after starting the day fourth. The final laps, including the final eight after the last caution, were a race between Benjamin and Nemechek.

“We didn’t have time to get to him. I think maybe if we had two more laps,” Benjamin said. “That was kind of characteristic of our truck all day long.”

Benjamin has driven in six XFinity series races over the last two years, and said prior to this weekend he had never even been to Martinsville, much less taken laps on The Paperclip.

Rhodes has good start, but bad finish

Ben Rhodes continued his strong weekend at Martinsville by winning Stages 1 and 2 Monday, and leading a total of 134 laps in the race.

The struggles for Rhodes came when his crew had issues on pit road on a tire change, forcing the No. 41 truck to lose the lead and slip out of the top 10. He restarted 15th with just over 100 laps to go, and was unable to fight his way back to the front.

The 12th place finish was the first time in four races this season the 19-year-old has finished lower than 7th.

Lap 86 incident

The first non-stage ending caution of the day came on Lap 86 after Stewart Friesen spun between Turns 1 and 2, causing a chain reaction that put Tyler Matthews and Robby Lyons into the inside wall. The incident also caused damage to Harrison Burton's No. 51 truck.

Friesen and Rhodes were fighting for the top spot at the time of the incident. Friesen finished 20th overall. Burton was able to recover to a top 10 finish, coming in eighth after starting the day 13th.

Other notables

-Brett Moffitt continued his strong season, coming away third, his third top-3 finish in a row.

Moffitt has one win already this season at Atlanta.

“We didn’t have quite the speed that they had up front but… we kind of made up some spots on strategy putting new tires on late and I guess we brought quite a few people down pit road with us so we only ended up losing one spot on that last stop,” he said. “To get out of Martinsville with another top 3… good start to the season and just wish we could have been a little bit faster today.”

-Grant Enfinger ran near the front all day, finishing third after Stage 1 and eighth after Stage 2. He finished the day fourth.

“We were in contention,” Enfinger said. “We definitely weren’t the best truck out here but we were top two or three.”

-The truck John Hunter Nemechek drove to the win is the same truck he drove in two wins last season. This was his first time bringing that truck to Martinsville.

“We worked really hard on it, unloaded it and it had a lot of speed and we just kept working on our truck all day,” Nemechek said. “I kept telling (Crew Chief) Gere (Kennon) what I thought I needed but really nothing, we kind of stayed the balance all day of what we were fighting. We had a long green flag run there where we were able to get by some guys and we had really good long run speed and those last few laps.”