John Hunter Nemechek is browsing a thrift shop in Tokyo, Japan, when he finds a piece he has to buy.
“I found a Jimmie Johnson rookie season polesitter shirt for the Daytona 500 from 2002,” Nemechek told RACER.
Nemechek, along with Johnson and other Toyota executives, was on a tour of Tokyo at the time, visiting various shops and frequently encountering vintage NASCAR apparel and memorabilia. In that same shop, Nemechek found Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Sr. items, as well as old Winston Cup Racing-branded shirts. At the checkout counter, the man helping Nemechek pulled out another large stack of T-shirts with everyone from Bobby Labonte to Greg Biffle and Travis Kvapil in the pile.
“It was pretty much anyone and everyone that you can think of from back in the day,” Nemechek said. “It was cool to see that. But the fans were all wearing those jackets or current stuff, hats. Literally anything and everything. There were people who had so many die-casts of Jimmie from throughout the years. We just released the Backstreet Boys paint scheme that we had in Las Vegas in a die-cast, and there were fans that had that.”
The shopping excursion and tour were during some downtime ahead of an exhibition featuring NASCAR at Fuji Speedway, held before the Super Taikyu Series final round on November 16. Johnson was also there, driving the Garage 56 entry from the 2023 Le Mans event. Kamui Kobayashi drove a 23XI Racing car.
It was the first time Nemechek had ever visited Japan. The Legacy Motor Club driver, whose owner is Johnson, went with no expectations about the reception or how the event would turn out. But it quickly went from feeling like another race weekend, as Nemechek tried to approach it, to an eye-opening experience about NASCAR’s reach.
The NASCAR exhibition event in Japan drew fans from many different countries – and breeds. Image courtesy of Toyota
“I don’t know if it could have gone much better,” Nemechek said, “The way the fans embraced it, the way that everyone who went had smiles all around. It was an amazing experience. The one common thing I’d say from the trip is that everyone was smiling the entire time, and that makes you feel good as a driver, for a team owner from Jimmie’s standpoint, the manufacturer of Toyota, and even from the fan base.
“There were people who came from China, Thailand, and the Middle East. There were so many different people from different countries who came to see NASCAR because it was the closest it had been to them. It was amazing to hear those stories. The whole culture embraced it.”
Autograph sessions provided a chance for those interactions, and then the cars were put on track a few times, leading into the exhibition, including for two-seater rides. The main event on Sunday started with Nemechek seeing fans waving American flags from the grandstands as the cars were rolled to the grid.
“We were able to swap the lead a few times and really race hard,” Nemechek said. “It was a lot of fun. We were locking up brakes and pushing as hard as we possibly could to put on a good show, and then we got to burn it down afterward and put on a burnout fest for the fans. It was pretty neat. You couldn’t see the frontstretch at one point, there was so much smoke.”
Japan might have been the furthest from home Nemechek has experienced with NASCAR, but he has been international with the sport previously. Nemechek raced in Canada during his time in the Craftsman Truck Series, and the Cup Series made its inaugural trip to Mexico City in June. But the global audience the sport has was really driven home with the trip to Japan, and now he has a new destination to add to his racing wish list.
“I think everywhere we’ve been from an international standpoint has been a huge hit, from racing in Mexico, and racing in Canada, which was absolutely amazing,” Nemechek said.
“Every time that we went there with the Truck Series, it was packed and sold out. There were so many fans there, and even for our little exhibition that we did in Japan, yes, there were other series there, but everyone was pumped about NASCAR, everyone wanted to look at the cars. We had a tent set up in our garage area and the fans were able to walk through and see the cars and get autographs, take [pictures, and it was packed the entire time we were there.
“So, I think it was a huge hit, and hopefully we can go back and race there. That would be really, really neat.”
AloJapan.com