Joe Nemechek - 2000-2005

2000-2005

For 2000, Nemechek signed to drive the #33 Oakwood Homes Chevrolet for Andy Petree Racing, winning the pole at Talladega and finishing a career-best fifteenth in points. He missed five races the following year after suffering an elbow injury at a test at Dover in 2001, then went on to win the Pop Secret Microwave Popcorn 400 at North Carolina Speedway that November.

After Petree's team began to run into financial problems, Nemechek's team was left without a sponsor and he left for Haas-Carter Motorsports to take over the #26 Kmart Ford Taurus that Jimmy Spencer had left to drive for Chip Ganassi Racing. However, Nemechek went from one financial problem to another as Kmart filed for bankruptcy early in the 2002 season and stopped sponsoring the Haas-Carter team. This forced Haas-Carter to scale back its operations to one team and Nemechek was released in favor of keeping Todd Bodine, who was driving the team's other car, in the fold. Nemechek found an opportunity almost immediately as Johnny Benson, who was the driver of the #10 Valvoline Pontiac for MBV Motorsports, was injured in a crash and required a substitute. After driving several races in the #10 Nemechek was hired by Hendrick Motorsports to replace Jerry Nadeau in the #25 UAW/Delphi Chevrolet. Nemechek drove the remainder of the season for Hendrick and performed well enough to earn a full-time ride the next season.

In 2003, he won at the Pontiac Excitement 400 as well as posting five other top-ten finishes, but finished 25th in points. It wasn't enough for Nemechek to keep his job at Hendrick, and at the end of the season was released from his contract.

For the 2004, season, Nemechek returned to MB2/MBV Motorsports, taking over the #01 U.S. Army car. As fate would have it, he was again replacing Jerry Nadeau as the driver although this time it was due to Nadeau suffering a severe injury that would eventually end his racing career. He won two poles late in the season. In October, Nemechek won at Kansas Speedway, beating out Ricky Rudd at the finish line. Nemechek also won the Busch Series race at Kansas the day before, making him the first driver to pull the Busch-Cup double win at the track.

In 2005, Nemechek won a pole at Michigan and fell seven points short of matching his career-best points finish.