On a Wednesday episode of the Talking in Circles Podcast, Derrike Cope, Team Manager of StarCom Racing, indicated that there will be no major changes to the No. 00 team for the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series season, including not running a second car.
“Right now, we have no plans for our organization to run a second car out of our facility,” Cope said. “We are really going to concentrate on staying within ourselves and continue to put good, solid race cars on the track each week for Quin.”
Cope stated that Quin Houff, who competed for Rookie of the Year honors with the team in 2020, improved mightily as the season went on and he expects to see continued growth from the Virginia-native in 2021. Houff was signed to a multi-year deal to drive the No. 00 car last offseason.
Rejoining StarCom Racing and Houff in 2021 will be crew chief George Church.
According to Cope, the team acquired new cars from JTG Daugherty Racing in the early portion of 2020 and they have been working on getting their Daytona equipment dialed in since October. He feels they are very ahead of the game and they will have newer style 2020 bodies on their Camaro for the Daytona 500 and in 2021.
StarCom Racing debuted with Cope driving their No. 00 machine in two races late in the 2017 season. Since then, the organization has fielded a full-time car in every season. Through 128 starts, StarCom Racing has never recorded a top-10 finish, but the team is focused on climbing their way up the ladder in a financially efficient and methodical manner.
Houff finished 33rd in the NASCAR Cup Series championship standings a season ago, with a best finish of 13th coming at Talladega Superspeedway in the fall.
Will they take a step forward in 2021? Time will tell, but one thing is for sure, continuity from one season to the next on all fronts can do nothing but help the team find its bearings.
Here is the full Derrike Cope interview on the Talking in Circles Podcast:
[ai_playlist id=”55214″]
