NASCAR

The win is the first for Team Penske on the Daytona oval track in Xfinity Series competition. Cindric, 22, will also compete in Sunday’s Daytona 500, making his first NASCAR Cup Series start. “Oh my goodness. What an awesome race. What a really, really fast Ford Mustang,” Cindric said. “Unbelievable effort by everyone at Team Penske. Obviously coming off a lot of momentum winning the championship last year but nothing’s guaranteed. “I’m going to try to do it again tomorrow, I guess. I’m just excited I get to come back tomorrow and run in front of a great group of people. It’s awesome we have fans here.” Asked if there was anything he could have done differently to change the outcome, Moffitt said: “Start up front? I don’t know. (Jeb Burton) did an awesome job pushing me, so thank you to him. “I can’t thank this Our Motorsports group enough. Everyone on this team has worked so hard to turn this very small team into a very successful team in a short amount of time.” Harrison Burton finished third, Jeb Burton was fourth and A.J. Allmendinger rounded out the top-five. Completing the top-10 were Brandon Brown, Myatt Snider, Brandon Gdovic, Daniel Hemric and Jason White. In stage 2, Coming to the checkered flag, Snider hit Brandon Jones, sending his No. 19 Toyota sliding through the infield grass and then back up on the track where he collided violently with Cody Ware and then Alex Labbe. Neither driver was injured. “I was doing my job. I was trying to block that lane. We were getting close to that stage end and I’m assuming the teammates were wanting to break off for that reason and try to get to the front,” Jones said. “We were getting kind of left, so I was trying to make some last minute moves to try to protect myself as best as I could. It just didn’t work out.” Cindric was third in the stage, Haley fourth and Brown rounded out the top-five. Following the break between Stages 1 and 2, most of the lead-lap cars elected to pit but Ryan Sieg stayed out and inherited the lead. On the restart on Lap 37, Sieg was followed by Brown, White and Allmendinger. With 15 laps remaining in the second stage, Sieg continued to lead the way followed by Haley, Brown and Snider. With 10 laps to go, Sieg continued to fight off all challengers and maintained his lead, followed by Haley and Brown. On Lap 58, Moffitt led a train of cars on the bottom lane and eventually was able to run down Sieg and move into the lead. Dillon moved into second and Cindric third. In the last stage, On the restart on Lap 66, Ty Dillon led the way followed by Cindric, Justin Allgaier and Noah Gragson. Cindric quickly moved into the lead on the restart. Green flag pit stops were just beginning on Lap 76 when Chad Finchum got into the back of Michael Annett as Annett was preparing to head to pit road. That triggered a multi-car wreck on the frontstretch that also collected Gragson, Bayley Currey, Jeffrey Earnhardt, Gray Gaulding, Ryan Sieg and Ryan Vargas, among others. The lead-lap cars decided to pit under the caution – most for fuel-only – with Justin Haley the first off pit road. On the restart on Lap 84, Haley led the way followed by Harrison Burton, Riley Herbst and Hemric. With 35 laps to go, Harrison Burton was able to edge ahead of Haley and take the lead for the first time in the race. On Lap 99, Caesar Bacarella spun off Turn 4 to bring out a caution. Most of the lead-lap cars remained on the track and Harrison Burton continued to lead the way on the restart on Lap 104. Dillon got a huge shove from Josh Berry which sent him in the middle of two lines where he then hit Hemric and triggered a multi-car wreck. Also involved were several contenders for the win including Haley, Josh Berry, Allgaier, Brown and Herbst. After an extensive cleanup, the race returned to green on Lap 113 with Harrison Burton still out front followed by Cindric, Moffitt, Allmendinger and Snider. On Lap 115, Landon Cassill got turned by Jeb Burton on the frontstretch in an incident that also collected Tommy Joe Martins and Jeremy Clements. Cindric was the leader at the time of the caution. On the start of overtime, Cindric led the way followed by Harrison Burton, Moffitt, Allmendinger and Snider.

Kyle Busch led less than a lap of the 2021 Busch Clash NASCAR Cup Series exhibition race on the Daytona International Speedway road course Tuesday night, but he led when it counted. When a last-lap battle for the lead between Chase Elliott and Ryan Blaney got physical, sending Blaney into a spin, Busch took advantage of the opportunity to race from third to the lead and on to the win. “I knew to keep my head down and keep focus ahead and see if I could keep hitting my marks to get close enough to have a shot like that – if something like that were to materialize. Fortunately it did for us. I can’t say enough about Ben Beshore [crew chief] and this whole M&Ms team – this new M&Ms team. I appreciate what they do for me, everybody at Joe Gibbs Racing, Toyota, TRD. It’s awesome to start off the year with a win a non-points win, but I would love nothing more than to be right here this Sunday.” Elliott, winner of the four most recent Cup Series, points-paying road-course races, including the first series race on the Daytona road course last season, still managed a second-place finish after starting in the back because of an unapproved change to his car before the race. Race pole sitter Blaney, though, wound up 13th in the 21-car race. “Yeah, and neither one of us won;e that’s the big one,” Elliott said. “I was close enough to drive it in there, and I feel like I’d be mad at myself for not at least trying. Obviously, I don’t mean to wreck anybody, especially him. Some guys I wouldn’t mind. But he’s not one of them. Hopefully, he’s not too mad at me. I feel like you’ve got to go for it, here, in an event like this in any situation.” ” I can’t be sorry about going for the win, but I certainly didn’t mean to wreck him. I drove in there, and just that corner gets so tight, and I didn’t want to just completely jump the curb to the right. But I feel like I tried to get over, there, as far as I could. And at that point, we were coming together at the same time. I hate it. We had a fast Llumar Chevrolet in a position to have a shot at it. We’ll try again on Sunday.” Busch’s Joe Gibbs Racing teammate, Denny Hamlin, dominated the race, leading 21 laps before pitting for new tires during the final caution of the race, brought out by a third JGR driver, Martin Truex Jr., on lap 28. Elliott stayed out, having run out of tires, and inherited the lead. Blaney, like Hamlin, was among the drivers who pitted for tires during the final yellow flag, and when the race restarted, he quickly moved up to second and took the lead from Elliott on the penultimate lap of the race. Hamlin wound up sixth after leading nearly two-thirds of the race. Hamlin, Elliott, Blaney and Truex were the only four drivers who led multiple laps. Elliott and Blaney each ran up front for four laps, and Truex led two when he took the lead from Hamlin on lap 14, just before a competition caution. After taking the lead, Truex was penalized for missing the chicane that included laps 13 and 14 during the caution. He took the lead from Hamlin, again, though, just before he caused the the final caution. His last stint up front wasn’t long enough for him to be credited for leading another lap before retiring from the race. As a result of his late-race incident, Truex was the only driver among the 21 who started the race to not finish it. Joey Logano finished third, Tyler Reddick was fourth, and William Byron rounded out the top-five. Other top-10 finishers included Alex Bowman in seventh, Erik Jones in eighth, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. in ninth, and Matt DiBenedetto in 10th.

Landon Cassill will make a return to full-time competition with the JD Motorsports with Gary Keller stable, driving the No. 4 Blue-Emu Chevrolet Camaro in the season-opening NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Daytona International Speedway on Saturday, Feb. 13, at 5 p.m. ET on FS1. Cassill is looking to break back into the spotlight after a limited campaign behind the wheel in 2020. Although Cassill started just six NASCAR Xfinity Series races last season, he really made his mark utilizing the eNASCAR iRacing Pro Invitational Series to remain competitive. “I’m so excited to open up the new season with Blue-Emu on my car,” Landon Cassill said. “I’ve had a great relationship with many sponsors through my career, but Blue-Emu is a company that has truly taken me in as their own and I can’t thank them enough. We’ve accomplished so much together in the digital world, it feels meant to be to take them to the real world. This is the car that my fanbase has been waiting for.” The Iowa-native racing veteran was ever-present in iRacing’s ecosystem in 2020 — some days logging more than 12 hours behind the wheel from his home in North Carolina. Blue-Emu was with him every step of the way — from the paint scheme on his virtual race car to the branding on his super sleek Sim rig seen on streaming in-car cameras. “Last year presented every brand with a unique marketing challenge, and we were no different,” shared Benjamin Blessing, EVP of Marketing at Blue-Emu. “When Landon presented this opportunity for Daytona to us, this brought our story full circle. What a way to connect both worlds of racing: digital and live.” iRacing and NASCAR have hosted virtual races through the eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Series for more than a decade, so there was a natural progression to create the eNASCAR iRacing Pro Invitational Series and bring fans competition virtually when real racing halted due to the global pandemic. Six of the eNASCAR iRacing Pro Invitational Series broadcasts are ranked the highest-rated eSports TV programs of all time and averaged more than 1.1 million viewers each week.

virtual drawing Monday among crew chiefs from teams participating in Tuesday’s Busch Clash exhibition race on the Daytona International Speedway road course puts Ryan Blaney on the pole for the 35-lap race. Alex Bowman will start next to Blaney on the front row. Denny Hamlin and Brad Keselowski will start in the second row. Erik Jones, who won the 2020 Clash on the Daytona oval will start ninth. Tuesday night’s race will be Jones’ first stint behind the wheel of the #43 Richard Petty Motorsports Chevrolet. This year’s edition of the event will be its first on the road course. Chase Elliott, who will start seventh, won last year’s points paying race on the Daytona road course, the only NASCAR Cup Series race, to this point, on the course. Elliott has won the last four road-course races in the Cup Series, dating back to 2019. Other top-10 starters include William Byron in fifth, Tyler Reddick in sixth, Cole Custer eighth and Joey Logano in 10th. Drivers qualified for the Clash by being former Clash winners or Daytona 500 pole or race winners, provided they were full-time Cup Series drivers in 2020; 2020 pole winners; 2020 race winners, participation in the 2020 playoffs; or 2020 stage wins. Twenty-one drivers are enterd of the 24 eligible for the event. Clint Bowyer, Jimmie Johnson and Matt Kenseth are qualified but are not participating after their retirements at the end of the 2020 season. The stage win criteria made Ty Dillon eligible for the 2021 Clash, but he lost his ride at Germain Racing when that team shut down at the end of the 2020 season. The new 23XI Racing team co-owned by Denny Hamlin and Michael Jordan has hired Dillon to drive its #E23 Toyota in the Busch Clash, because 23XI’s driver, Darrell “Bubba” Wallace Jr., isn’t Clash-eligible. Dillon will start the car from the 14th position Tuesday.

Beard Motorsports team owner and former NASCAR driver Mark Beard Sr. has died at the age of 72. On Monday, the team announced his passing but added that they will press on with their plans of running the Daytona 500 in two weeks, fielding the #62 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE for Cup Series newcomer Noah Gragson. A cause of death was not specified, but an obituary from Charles R. Lux Family Funeral Home in his hometown Mount Pleasant, Michigan, explains he died on Sunday at his home. “It is with profound sadness that we announce the passing of Mark Beard Sr., president of Beard Motorsports,” began a statement from the team. “Mark was passionate about racing and the businesses he built with his family, and even though he will be terribly missed, his work ethic and kind heart lives on with the many people he influenced. “While the family requests privacy at this time, they want to reaffirm Beard Motorsports’ commitment to compete in this year’s 500 where the team will race in Mark’s honour.” Beard began his driving career in karting and drag racing before moving into oval tracks such as dirt and ARCA, racing for car owners like Indianapolis 500 winner and fellow Michigan native Gordon Johncock. In 1982, he ran the inaugural Budweiser Late Model Sportsman (now the Xfinity Series) race at Daytona, where he finished eighteenth as an owner/driver. He would not make another start in the series until 1986 when he finished twenty-sixth at Charlotte. His driving days, plagued by little support, would end following various failed qualifying efforts in the early 1990s, with his final attempt being a DNQ at Michigan in 1995. Gary Neice, Dana Patten, Bobby Dotter (current owner of Xfinity team SS-Green Light Racing), L.D. Ottinger, Richard Lasater, Butch Miller, and Jim Brinkley Jr. would also race Beard’s cars during the decade. Off the track, Beard worked in the oil business; in 1984, he founded M&L Petroleum Inc. followed by Beard Oil in 2005. In 2009, he got back into racing as a team owner when he founded Beard Motorsports. His son Mark Beard II would also become a driver in late models for the family operation. Beard Motorsports débuted during the 2009 ARCA season with Clay Rogers. Due to the team’s small size and lack of funding, mechanical trouble plagued their early history, such as when Rogers moved from fortieth to third in their maiden start at Michigan but retired in thirty-second with an engine failure, followed by qualifying fourth in the next year’s race there but finishing thirty-second again due to a clutch issue. The team hoped to move into the Cup Series in 2014 with Rogers, but failed to qualify in both of their attempts at Richmond and Phoenix. After a two-year dormancy, Beard revived his Cup programme with Brendan Gaughan to run the superspeedway races. Gaughan would run seventeen races for Beard, all of which were at Daytona and Talladega with one being on the former’s road course in 2020, scoring four top tens and a best finish of seventh on two occasions. Gaughan retired after the 2020 season and the team added Gragson, an Xfinity Series regular who hails from Las Vegas like Gaughan, for the Daytona 500. Should Gragson race his way into the 500, it will mark his Cup début. “Heavy hearts today. Thinking about the Beard Family,” Gragson tweeted. “Time to go ‘drive the piss out of it’ and do it for Mr. Beard in the 500.” “From a young age Mark loved race cars,” read the obituary. “He started from building Go-Karts to realizing his goal of racing late models and Busch Grand Nationals at Daytona. In 2016 he established his own NASCAR Cup Team, running the #75, then the #62. Among his many leisure activities, Mark enjoyed boating, snowmobiling, hunting, and golfing. He was the kind of guy that brought life and laughter to any room, never knowing what he might say. Mark was a strong man who would do anything for his beloved family.”

Kyle Busch Motorsports will still compete in the NASCAR Truck Series, but Kyle Busch has shuttered the team’s super late model program.Kyle Busch has placed his ownership focus on his NASCAR Truck Series team for the upcoming season, as he has made the decision to shut down the Kyle Busch Motorsports super late model team, at least for now, he confirmed on Monday. Kyle Busch Motorsports are still slated to compete in the upcoming Truck Series season, with John Hunter Nemechek behind the wheel of the #4 Toyota and Chandler Smith behind the wheel of the #18 Toyota in a full-time capacity. Busch, the winningest driver in Truck Series history, plans to compete in five races behind the wheel of the #51 Toyota, just as he usually does, with another driver(s) behind the wheel for the other 17 races on the 22-race schedule. He is set to continue on with his full-time role with Joe Gibbs Racing’s Cup Series team behind the wheel of the #18 Toyota as well, and with new crew chief Ben Beshore. This was one of the factors involved in his decision to shut down his super late model team. He also noted the commitments he has with Rowdy Energy, the energy drinks business he founded two years ago and still co-owns, as one of the other reasons why he made the tough decision. In an interview will the MRN Radio Kyle Busch said, “It’s insane, literally. I think it was last week that there was so much stuff going on and flying around. Everyone thinks the offseason is your off time and it’s just been hectic. I’ve been trying to do Kyle Busch Motorsports stuff and Rowdy Energy stuff and been getting reading with an all-new Joe Gibbs Racing team. It’s been crazy. “I told Samantha, ‘I can’t have anything else thrown my way right now. I am to the max. I have to start throwing some stuff out.’ Lo and behold, unfortunately I shut my super late model team down. That was just one of the things that I couldn’t seem to find the right circumstances and right people to run that thing for me. It just didn’t make sense right now anymore. We’ll see if it makes sense in the future. Those are the kind of things you have to sacrifice and put aside.”

The new dirt-track race at Bristol Motor Speedway will feature two 75-lap stages before a 100-lap final stage, NASCAR announced Monday. The circuit released the stage lengths for almost all of the schedule, leaving off only the May 23 event at Circuit of the Americas and the June 13 non-points All-Star Race at Texas Motor Speedway. The Bristol dirt-track race is scheduled for March 28. The Daytona 500 (Feb. 14) will maintain its sequence of two 65-lap stages followed by a 70-lap finale. The Coca-Cola 600, May 30 at Charlotte Motorspeedway, is sticking with four stages, each 100 laps. The season-ending event at Phoenix Raceway (Nov. 7) is also unchanged at a 75-lap stage, a 110-lap stage and then a 122-lap stage. After the Busch Clash opens the NASCAR Cup Series season on Feb. 9 at Daytona, the Bluegreen Vacations Duel, a pair of 150-mile races on Feb. 11, will set the stage for the circuit’s biggest event three days later.

In 2021, Austin Cindric will not only seek to defend his NASCAR Xfinity Series championship, but will also begin racing in the Cup Series on a part-time basis. The first step in the latter was revealed on Wednesday when Team Penske announced he try to make his Cup début in the season-opening Daytona 500, driving the #33 Ford Mustang. After two seasons in the Xfinity Series that produced two combined wins, Cindric broke out in 2020 with a six-win campaign that ended in his first NASCAR title. Last October, while the regular season champion was thick in the playoffs, Penske announced he would run a part-time Cup schedule for the team in 2021 before taking over the #21 of Wood Brothers Racing full time in 2022. While the Daytona 500 will be Cindric’s first Cup race, it is not his first seat time in a premier series car. In 2019, he was a substitute practice driver for Penske’s Brad Keselowski and fellow Ford driver Michael McDowell in at Atlanta and the Charlotte Roval, respectively, while the two were dealing with medical issues. Number 33 was last used in the Cup Series in 2017 by Circle Sport for Jeffrey Earnhardt, and is most notably associated with Harry Gant, who won eighteen races with the number from 1981 to 1994. Cindric is not locked into the Daytona 500, the entry list for which is now up to 44 cars. With 36 teams already guaranteed a slot via charter, Cindric will have to fight for the four remaining spots by qualfying on speed or through the Bluegreen Vacations Duel. “There is a lot to be excited about heading into Daytona,” said Cindric. “It doesn’t really even need to be said that the Daytona 500 is the biggest crown jewel race in NASCAR and one of the biggest races in the world – so to have a shot to be in the show while driving for Roger Penske is a big opportunity.” “Qualifying our way into the race as an ‘open’ car will be a big challenge. I look forward to working with Miles and all of the guys on the No. 33 team, while also continuing my focus on winning back-to-back Xfinity Series Championships.”

There are a total of 44 confirmed entries for the Daytona 500 race which will happen on February among 23 teams (potentially 45 among 24 if Tommy Baldwin Racing field a car), and there are 40 available spots in the starting lineup. This means that there will be at least eight drivers battling for the final four spots and thus at least four who don’t make it. But we already know one team that won’t make it, because they don’t plan to try. There are currently 24 teams with plans to compete at some point in the 2021 season, and as noted above, there are currently 23 slated to compete in the Daytona 500. Even if Team Penske field a fourth car for reigning Xfinity Series champion Austin Cindric, which they plan to do in unspecified races this season, that would keep the total at 23 teams, given the fact that Roger Penske’s team also run three chartered entries for Brad Keselowski, Ryan Blaney and Joey Logano. The one team with plans to compete in 2021 but without plans to compete in the season opener is Go Fas Racing, which had competed as a full-time team for the last 10 years before scaling back to a part-time effort for the upcoming season. The Archie St. Hilaire-owned team unloaded their charter after the 2020 season following the announcement that Corey LaJoie would not be back behind the wheel of the #32 Ford for what would have been a third consecutive season in 2021. They announced plans to compete in five or six of the 36 races on the schedule, with Ryan Ellis likely to be their driver, but the Daytona 500 is not one of those races. Of course, more teams could end up not making it into the race like Go Fas Racing, given the fact that they will be fielding non-chartered entries and thus battling just to secure one of the four remaining starting spots. In fact, it’s guaranteed that at least one other team won’t make it, as the eight confirmed non-chartered entries are spread among seven teams, and five of those seven teams do not have any chartered entries locked into the field. So at most, 22 of the 23 teams planning to compete in the race will do so. But Go Fas Racing unfortunately won’t even try, despite a team-best eighth place finish in the race with LaJoie last year.

Jamie McMurray might be enjoying his cushy studio job at Fox NASCAR, but when the 2021 Cup Series season begins with the Daytona 500 in February, he will trade in his broadcasting chair for the driver’s seat once again. On Tuesday, Chip Ganassi Racing and Spire Motorsports announced the 2010 Daytona 500 winner will drive the #77 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE in the 2021 race. It will not be McMurray’s first dance with Spire, having raced for the team in their début race in the 2019 Daytona 500. In what is his most recent start in NASCAR, he finished twenty-second after caught in a late wreck. From 2003 to 2018, he raced full-time in the Cup Series for Ganassi and Roush Fenway Racing, winning seven races and recording a best points finish of eleventh in 2004. In 2010, his first season back at Ganassi after spending four years at Roush, he won a pair of Crown Jewel events with the Daytona 500 and Brickyard 400. Of his seven Cup wins, five have come at superspeedways, including the summer July race in 2007 and thrice at Talladega; his last victory was at the 2013 fall Talladega event. “It doesn’t get any better than the Daytona 500, and I am so excited to have the opportunity, thanks to (sponsor) AdventHealth, to run this race one more time,” McMurray stated. “I have enjoyed my time out of the car as an analyst covering NASCAR, but nothing can replace the feeling of actually racing.” Spire, also a winner at Daytona thanks to Justin Haley in the 2019 July race, is fielding the #7 on a full-time basis for Corey LaJoie. While McMurray is in the #77 for the 500, drivers for the other thirty-five races have not been revealed though Haley will likely be back for a few events. Both cars possess charters, one of which came from the recently-shuttered Leavine Family Racing, and are locked into the 500 regardless of qualifying and Duel result. Incidentally, while McMurray is presumably not running the following week’s race on the Daytona road course, he has won on the circuit before. In 2015, he and CGR won the overall Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona. On a more fitting note, the 2021 Daytona 500 will take place on 14 February, the same day that McMurray won the 2010 race.

Derrike Cope, who won the 1990 Daytona 500, is getting another shot at “The Great American Race.” In what’s being billed as his final Daytona 500 start, the 62-year-old Cope will drive the No. 15 Chevrolet for Rick Ware Racing with sponsorship from construction firm Jacob Companies. The team has a charter, guaranteeing Cope a starting spot in the race. “I have known Rick and his family for a long time and I am excited to have the opportunity to go to Daytona and race for another win,” Cope said in a release. “I am excited to have Don Perry with Jacob Company as the primary sponsor as well. I want to thank Mike and Matt Kohler and Bill Woehlemann with StarCom Fiber for making this all possible! I could not be more excited to get back to Daytona!” Cope, currently the team manager for Cup outfit Starcom Racing, has made over 700 career NASCAR national series starts. He has earned two Cup Series victories, the other being a June 1990 triumph at Dover International Speedway. He’s also won at the Xfinity Series level, taking the checkered flag at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in May 1994. This year’s Daytona 500 will be Cope’s first Cup start since the 2018 Southern 500 at Darlington. During that race, as part of NASCAR Throwback Weekend, his car carried his own Bojangles paint scheme that he ran for NASCAR Hall of Famer Cale Yarborough’s team during the 1993 season.

Gaunt Brothers Racing has named Ty Dillon as its driver for the 63rd running of the Daytona 500 Feb. 14 at Daytona International Speedway. The 28-year-old from Lewisville, North Carolina, will make his 163rd career NASCAR Cup Series start upon qualifying for The Great American Race. Dillon will drive the No. 96 Bass Pro Shops/Black Rifle Coffee Company Toyota Camry, marking his first points-paying start behind the wheel of a Toyota. “Gaunt Brothers Racing has given me a great opportunity to compete in the Daytona 500 and I couldn‘t be happier,” Dillon said. “I love superspeedway races and the Daytona 500 is the biggest of them all. Toyota has certainly proven itself in our sport and in the Daytona 500. I‘m looking forward to racing with them and reuniting with Bass Pro Shops and Black Rifle Coffee Company.” Dillon is the 2011 ARCA Menards Series champion. He has 10 career NASCAR Cup Series starts at Daytona with three top-10 finishes, including a fourth-place drive in the 2019 Coke Zero Sugar 400. Gaunt Brothers Racing has put particular emphasis on its superspeedway program in 2021. The team will unload a brand-new Toyota Camry for Dillon at Daytona with an engine built by Toyota Racing Development, U.S.A. (TRD). “The best way to get a good start to your season is to have a good finish in the Daytona 500,” said Marty Gaunt, president, Gaunt Brothers Racing. “We‘ve got a talented driver in Ty Dillon with a strong TRD engine plugged into the best equipment available. Together with Toyota, Bass Pro Shops and Black Rifle Coffee Company, we‘re ready to compete and surprise some people.”

Already set to run in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series for Young’s Motorsports, Kris Wright is now adding some Xfinity Series races to his 2021 schedule. Sam Hunt Racing confirmed Thursday that the 26-year-old Wright will race for the team this season. His schedule will focus on the seven road course events, starting with the Feb. 20 race on the road course at Daytona International Speedway. The team has already confirmed IndyCar veteran Santino Ferrucci for a part-time schedule that’s focused on 1.5-mile tracks, as well as Brandon Gdovic for a limited, oval-based schedule. “I’m really excited to be competing with (Sam Hunt Racing) in the 2021 Xfinity Series,” Wright said in a team release. “Sam has great equipment and I’m hopeful I can get the most out of it.” Last season, Wright made 10 starts across the ARCA Menards Series national and regional tours, as well as a single Truck Series start for GMS Racing on the Daytona road course. His past resume includes winning the 2018 LMP3 class championship in the IMSA Prototype Challenge series. He has also competed in open-wheel ladder series such as British Formula 3 and the Road to Indy‘s U.S. F2000 and Indy Pro 2000. “His road racing background should make our events with him an absolute blast, and hopefully, he can put together some smart, competitive runs,” team owner Sam Hunt said in the same release.” Sam Hunt Racing also announced Thursday that veteran NASCAR spotter Chris Lambert will work with the team this season. Lambert works with fellow Toyota team Joe Gibbs Racing in the Cup Series as the spotter for Denny Hamlin.

Rapper Pitbull is now the co-owner of a NASCAR team. The team, Trackhouse Racing, made the announcement on Friday on social media, by way of a video featuring the artist and his single “I Believe That We Will Win (World Anthem)”. Pitbull shared his own message too, stating that he has “been a fan of the NASCAR story since the movie Days of Thunder”. The 1990 sports action film stars Tom Cruise as a young driver chasing NASCAR fame. Nicole Kidman, Robert Duvall, and Randy Quaid also feature. Pitbull deemed the announcement of his new NASCAR co-ownership “a great way to celebrate [his] 40th birthday”, which took place on Friday. The Grammy-winning artist, also known under the nickname Mr Worldwide, isn’t the only celebrity to have entered NASCAR ownership in recent months. In September last year, it was announced that Michael Jordan had become a part owner of the 23XI Racing team with driver driver Denny Hamlin. The team has driver Bubba Wallace in its No 23 Toyota. Trackhouse, the team now co-owned by Pitbull, has hired racer Daniel Suarez to drive its No 99 Chevrolet. Pitbull, whose real name is Armando Pérez, said he will attend the Daytona 500 in Florida on 14 February. NASCAR welcomed the addition of Pitbull, telling The Associated Press in a statement: “Pitbull is an iconic talent in the music industry and has tremendous passion for NASCAR racing.”

Beard Motorsports announced Thursday that NASCAR Xfinity Series regular Noah Gragson will drive its No. 62 Chevrolet in a bid for the season-opening Daytona 500 on Feb. 14. Gragson, who drives full-time in the Xfinity Series for JR Motorsports, will attempt to make his NASCAR Cup Series debut in the 500-mile crown jewel (2:30 p.m. ET, FOX, MRN, SiriusXM). The 22-year-old driver has already had success at Daytona International Speedway, claiming his first Xfinity triumph in last year’s season opener. The move keeps the organization’s connection to Las Vegas drivers intact. Brendan Gaughan retired from his part-time driving schedule with the Beard Motorsports group last year. According to the team’s publicists, the 45-year-old veteran was involved in selecting Gragson as his successor. “I‘m excited and humbled to have this opportunity with Beard Motorsports,” Gragson said in a team release. “As a young racer from Las Vegas, I had always dreamt of racing in the Daytona 500. I’m very appreciative of the faith the Beard family and Brendan have in me, and equally appreciative to JR Motorsports for allowing me to pull double duty and compete for them in the Xfinity Series and also Beard Motorsports while we’re down in Daytona.” Gragson returns for his third season in JRM’s No. 9 Chevy this year. Last season, he scored two victories (Daytona, Bristol) and advanced to the Round of 8 in the Xfinity Series Playoffs. Beard Motorsports, which shares a technical alliance with Richard Childress Racing, has focused its efforts on superspeedway events at Daytona and Talladega in recent years. Gaughan helped the No. 62 team cash in on those occasional starts, sweeping to top-10 finishes in both Daytona events last season. “I loved racing for the Beard Family and even though I’m retired, I’m honored to be a part of their team and I’m very protective of what they’ve built,” Gaughan said. “I’ve known Noah a long time and I know he’s a very good race car driver who is ready to do some Cup racing. Just as importantly, he takes good care of his equipment and he’s there at the end of races. In his entire Xfinity Series career, he‘s only had four DNFs. That’s important no matter who you’re racing for, but it’s especially important for Beard Motorsports. “I’m proud to see Noah have this opportunity and proud to see another Las Vegas guy in the NASCAR Cup Series.” Gragson becomes just the second driver in Beard Motorsports’ existence. The team has made just 17 Cup Series appearances since its 2017 debut, with all but a one-off road-course event last season happening at superspeedways. Gaughan netted top-10 results in four of those 17 starts. “Racing is our passion project,” said team owner Mark Beard Sr. “Even with Brendan‘s retirement, we wanted to keep racing. We‘ve accomplished a lot with the resources we have and we’re proud to give Noah the chance to chase his dream just like we chase ours.” Before his move to the Xfinity Series, Gragson was a two-time winner in the Camping World Truck Series. He finished runner-up in the 2018 standings. He also has seven wins in what is now called the ARCA Menards Series East and West tours, and has prestigious Late Model wins to his credit, including the 2017 Winchester 400 and the 2018 Snowball Derby. “When you’re racing Late Models and trying to work your way up, the Daytona 500 seems pretty far away,” Gragson said. “To have it become a reality is something I don’t take lightly. I’m ready for this moment and I’m proud to have it.”

Raphael Lessard’s part time racing with GMS Racing in the NASCAR Truck Series has been upgraded to full time for the 2021 Truck Series. The 19-year old ran the complete Truck Series schedule with Kyle Busch Motorsports in 2020. He won once at Talladega Superspeedway and placed 12th in the championship standings before the two parted ways. It was initially announced that he would move over to GMS Racing for the partial schedule in 2021, but that has since been increased to the entire season. The Quebec, Canada native will pilot the No. 24 Silverado in 2021 with backing from Richelieu Hardware. “We are really happy with the return of Richelieu Hardware to our program for the 2021 season. The favourable results of our first cooperation in 2020 now place both parties in an excellent position to build a stronger win-win partnership throughout the 2021 season,” said Lessard in a statement released Thursday. He joins Zane Smith, Chase Purdy, Tyler Ankrum and reigning series champion Sheldon Creed at GMS. “We are excited to have Raphael join us for the 2021 season,” said Mike Beam, President of GMS Racing. “Raphael is a talented young man and we are excited to see what he can do with a full season with this team.”