ANDERSON, Ind. — If a rookie is lamenting a sixth-place qualifying effort at the toughest non-winged sprint car event in the United States, it marks both a positive sign and a potential for upset when it comes to Saturday’s 69th running of the Pay Less Little 500.
For 18-year-old Austin Nemire, both of those factors brought a smile to his face after he put his No. 16 Sam Pierce Chevrolet entry on the outside of row two during Thursday’s weather-delayed Pole Day activities.
After competing in last Sunday’s ARCA Racing Series event at Toledo Speedway and planning to race in Thursday night’s Hoosier Hundred at the Indiana State Fairgrounds before rain washed away the night’s schedule, Nemire will look to shake his recent string of bad luck on Saturday at the quarter-mile, high-banked bullring.
“Man, bad luck and rainouts have not been our friend!” Nemire told Race Chaser Online Friday morning. “In the ARCA car, we can’t seem to find any luck there at all. We had a pretty good run going (at Toledo) and stupid stuff happened … so hopefully Saturday changes our tune and we can find our way to the finish.”
Nemire’s four-lap aggregate time was 45.480 seconds over the course of one-mile, at an average speed of 79.156 mph and just .316 of a second off of Caleb Armstrong’s pole run.
He was very nearly the fastest rookie qualifier for this year’s Little 500, but was edged out by fellow USAC Silver Crown Series regular C.J. Leary, who beat him both to that honor on Thursday and to the Silver Crown Rookie of the Year Award back in 2015.
Leary and Nemire were the only two rookies to lock themselves into the field on Thursday, as big name first-timers like Tony Stewart (18th) and Ken Schrader (21st) found themselves further down the running order entering Bump Day.
“It just seems like it’s always me and C.J., doesn’t it?” Nemire joked. “He put up a great run; I really wanted to be the top rookie, because that would have been a neat thing to add onto my resume, but he just beat us there by a little bit. The race is what really matters, so hopefully we can beat him out in that category in 36 hours or so.”
The young Hoosier admitted that he wasn’t sure where his speed came from on his official qualifying run, but he was thankful that it showed up when it did.
“I don’t know how we ended up that high! I really don’t know,” Nemire laughed. “Somehow I put down a few good laps. We were fast in practice; we were sixth, I think, at the end of practice and I knew we had a pretty good car … that there was still something left in it.”
“I went out the first time and the tires were super cold, so I came in and went out the second time and the tires were still cold, so I came in and then I went out the third time and the tires were still pretty cold … but they had enough heat in them to lay down a few good laps.”
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