{"id":270695,"date":"2025-10-02T01:56:21","date_gmt":"2025-10-02T01:56:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/270695\/"},"modified":"2025-10-02T01:56:21","modified_gmt":"2025-10-02T01:56:21","slug":"john-hunter-nemechek-calls-his-mistake-unacceptable-in-crash-with-zane-smith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/270695\/","title":{"rendered":"John Hunter Nemechek calls his mistake ‘unacceptable’ in crash with Zane Smith"},"content":{"rendered":"

CONCORD, N.C. \u2014 John Hunter Nemechek says his mistake was \u201cunacceptable\u201d in the incident with Zane Smith that sent Smith\u2019s car riding along the outside wall on two wheels before tumbling down the track last weekend at Kansas Speedway.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust made a mistake on my part,\u201d Nemechek told reporters Wednesday at the NASCAR Productions facility. \u201cI owned up to it. <\/p>\n

\u201cComing off of Turn 2, I was three-wide top. Had a run down the back straightaway. I was locked onto Zane down the back straightaway, pushing him. Ty (Gibbs) gave me a shot from behind, helping push the line. When I got that shot, it turned me a little bit sideways and when I kind of moved the steering wheel to correct, I ended up between Zane and Todd (Gilliland) getting into Turn 3 and thought they were going to run completely different lines with (Chris Buescher) in front of Zane.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe entry speed that (Zane) had, I thought he was going to run the very top. So I was going to go try run three-wide middle and ultimately just didn\u2019t have enough room between Zane\u2019s left rear quarter panel and my right front getting into the corner there. I got tight and then kind of got sucked into his left rear quarter and then we\u2019re along for the ride after that.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust a mistake on my part. It\u2019s unacceptable and definitely have to learn from and not let that happen again.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"NASCAR<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

NASCAR cites Carson Hocevar for his actions after he was involved in a crash at Kansas.<\/p>\n

After the contact with Smith sent Smith\u2019s car riding along the wall, Nemechek\u2019s car hit the rear of Gibbs\u2019 car and then bounced off Josh Berry\u2019s car and went back up the track into the wall.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t until after he left the infield care center that Nemechek saw a replay of the incident and what happened to Smith\u2019s car.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was kind of crazy that it happened,\u201d Nemechek said of Smith\u2019s car on the wall. \u201cI haven\u2019t seen that in a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"NASCAR<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Andy Street takes over the No. 8 while Randall Burnett will continue to work with the team before moving to Trackhouse Racing to be Connor Zilisch\u2019s crew chief after this season.<\/p>\n

As for why the contact put Smith\u2019s car against the wall that way, Nemechek said he wasn\u2019t sure.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know if just the angle of the corner entry there and the wall shape and things of that sort kind (caused the car to climb) the fence with the right side or what it was.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"NASCAR:<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Shane van Gisbergen goes for five in a row on road courses Sunday.<\/p>\n

Elton Sawyer, NASCAR senior vice president of competition, said Tuesday on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio\u2019s \u201cThe Morning Drive\u201d that series officials examined Smith\u2019s car after the race and also when it arrived back at the shop this week. He also said that series officials will examine the SAFER barrier wall at Kansas as part of their \u201cdue diligence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Smith was not happy with Nemechek about the incident.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"NASCAR:<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

The Charlotte Motor Speedway road course will play host to the top three national series on the same weekend for the first time.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had a decent restart going and I just get wrecked by (Nemechek),\u201d Smith said after exiting the infield care center last weekend. \u201cHe just drives through me and then I was sliding on the wall.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nemechek acknowledges that he needs to race Smith differently after this.<\/p>\n

\u201cI definitely owe him a couple of breaks,\u201d Nemechek said. \u201cJust being aware of my surrounds and things of that sort. It\u2019s on me. It\u2019s just a mistake that I made and can\u2019t be making mistakes like that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CONCORD, N.C. \u2014 John Hunter Nemechek says his mistake was \u201cunacceptable\u201d in the incident with Zane Smith that…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":270696,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[1406,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-270695","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nascar","8":"tag-nascar","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115302091081910133","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=270695"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270695\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/270696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=270695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=270695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=270695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}