What were you doing 12 years ago?
Were you a NASCAR fan, yet? How different was your life? I ask simply because Corey LaJoie and the No. 32 Go Fas Racing team will be running an old Roush Fenway Racing chassis, which was built in January, 2008, in this weekend’s YellaWood 500 at Talladega Superspeedway in the NASCAR Cup Series.
A 12-YEAR OLD CHASSIS. Go Fas Racing’s Interior Mechanic Bill Mares shared the information Friday on Twitter.
This week’s #FunFact for @CoreyLaJoie @GoFasRacing32 is about the car we are racing at @TalladegaSuperS on Sunday. Chassis RK 568 was originally built by Roush in 1/08. This car is literally older than one of our interns! #YellaWood500 pic.twitter.com/MaOnoDalkh
— bill mares (@killbillracing) October 3, 2020
Interestingly enough, RFR chassis No. 568 apparently started as a short-track chassis according to NASCARMan, who writes historical articles for Racing-Reference.info.
Ragan crashed the chassis in qualifying for the spring event at Bristol Motor Speedway in 2008:
Ah, that makes sense. Really cool 568 is still around. So interesting it's a superspeedway car now considering it was a short track car originally. Here's Ragan crashing 568 at Bristol in 2008 pic.twitter.com/h2HapIRr2z
— nascarman (@nascarman_rr) October 3, 2020
After the car was repaired, Ragan would score a 15th-place finish at Dover International Speedway in June of 2008, and a 10th-place finish in the night race at Bristol that fall, according to Twitter user @NASCARCatholic.
Amazingly, 12 years later, this Roush Fenway Racing short track chassis is incredibly still turning laps in the NASCAR Cup Series.
Mares states that chassis RK-568 served as the Superspeedway car for the No. 32 team in three of the four Superspeedway races in 2019. The car finished 18th in the Daytona 500, 11th at Talladega in the spring and sixth at Daytona in the summer.
The same chassis that was destroyed in the 2020 Daytona 500 was used in the fall race at Talladega last season, resulting in a seventh-place finish.
The crash in the last lap of the Daytona 500 involving LaJoie is why this 12-year old chassis is back on track this weekend.
