Veteran underdog NASCAR driver Joey Gase has acquired NASCAR Xfinity Series equipment and will start his own racing team for the 2022 NASCAR Xfinity Series season, according to a Thursday press release.
“I am extremely excited to start a new chapter in my career and life,” said Gase in the release. “To not only be a driver, but also a team owner, this is something I have been thinking about a lot the last few years. When I asked other team owners and mentors I expected to get a lot of push back saying not to, but to my surprise I got a lot of the opposite. I have learned a lot the past 10 years and have worked with a lot of great people from Jimmy Means, Bobby Dotter, Carl Long, Archie St. Hilaire and Rick Ware. They have all taught me a ton and have helped me every step of the way. It is not going to be easy by any means but I have a big support team behind me with my family and friends.”
The team will be named Joey Gase Racing and will feature the No. 35 on the sides of their race cars.
The team will announce their sponsors at a later date and they have hired Rick Bourgois as the general manager of the team. The organization is hiring all positions, currently.
According to the release, Gase has five cars, which came from the now defunct H2 Motorsports, which ran seven events during the 2019 NASCAR Xfinity Series season with Shane Lee behind the wheel.
The team scored a best finish of seventh, which came at Iowa Speedway, and they averaged a finish of 18th, before shuttering following the fall 2019 race at Bristol Motor Speedway.
Following a nasty split, Lee ended up with the assets from H2 Motorsports, and he is the one who sold the five cars and remaining H2 equipment to Gase.
According to the release, Gase made two starts with this equipment last year in the NASCAR Xfinity Series under the Jimmy Means Racing banner with Sparks Energy as the primary sponsor.
Now, Gase plans to dust the rest of the cars off and the plan for now is for the team to run the full schedule in 2022. Gase will drive the majority of the season in the car, while also running part-time in the NASCAR Cup Series. The team is also, “seeking qualified drivers,” to fill the races that Gase will not run.
Gase, 28, has 249-career NASCAR Xfinity Series starts as a driver. While the bulk of Gase’s career has been contested in underfunded equipment, Gase has scored one top-five and three top-10 finishes.
Now, the Iowa-native will look to see how he can do as an owner in NASCAR.
2 Responses
If the cars he bought were from H2 Motorsports, a Toyota team, where did they get the Fords?
You can put any body on the chassis. The chassis are not manufacturer specific.