Chandler Smith hooks teammate John Hunter Nemechek, causes massive wreck late at Phoenix
More than a few of the favorites in this NASCAR Xfinity Series race were wrecked as Chandler Smith hooked John Hunter Nemechek. The two Joe Gibbs Racing drivers were racing hard after a restart and then chaos.
Thirteen cars would take damage in this one. Sam Mayer, Parker Retzlaff, Jeb Burton, and others were DNFs. Riley Herbst was involved. This was a worst-case scenario in every sense of the word for these teams.
John Hunter Nemechek and Chandler Smith were fast all day. Then something like this happens and throws a wrench into the entire day.
Cautions breed cautions, this was right after a yellow came out for Hailie Deegan tapping the wall. And I do mean a tap. It was a light touch and many fans online felt a premature caution Now we have 13 race cars with damage.
Smith didn’t really have an option here that was satisfactory. If he lifts, he’s doomed as well to get run over from behind. In racing, circumstances will sometimes bring about a moment. These drivers were racing hard for track position and it didn’t work out.
John Hunter Nemechek won’t win two in a row
In a rather convincing win, John Hunter Nemechek was victorious at Las Vegas a week ago. Now full-time in the Cup Series, Nemechek is running a part-time Xfinity schedule. While he got hooked around this week, he had speed.
Looking back on the wreck, you can point to one thing, really. Smith had poor pit stops coming off of stage breaks and the Deegan caution. So, he went from the front leading to a couple of rows back. While the driver has some responsibility, his crew put him in a bad situation by not getting him out quickly enough.
Joe Gibbs can’t be too happy seeing two of his cars wrecking together. However, if you’re going to have a big team in this series that will happen. Just ask JR Motorsports, as they had multiple incidents between teammates last year.
The red flag came out after a while for this one. When all of those cars were wrecked, a ton of debris was sent all over the place. John Hunter Nemechek is out of this race, as is Hailie Deegan after the massive wreck.