Emerling-Gase Motorsports announced a driver change for the team’s No. 53 entry in Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series Alsco Uniforms 300 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, as Patrick Emerling will replace CJ McLaughlin behind the wheel of the machine.
McLaughlin crashed in Friday’s practice session, which relegated the team to a backup car.
The announced that Emerling would pilot the car via a Tweet at 12:49 PM ET, and issued gratitude to the MBM Motorsports team for helping them prepare its backup car for Saturday’s race.
“After an incident in practice yesterday @PatrickEmerling will now drive the #53 @SciAps_Inc car in todays Alsco 300. A massive thank you to @MBMMotorsports for their help in preparing todays car,” the tweet stated.
After an incident in practice yesterday @PatrickEmerling will now drive the #53 @SciAps_Inc car in todays Alsco 300. A massive thank you to @MBMMotorsports for their help in preparing todays car!
— Emerling-Gase Motorsports (@EG_Motorsports) March 4, 2023
In January, McLaughlin announced that he would pilot a car for Emerling-Gase Motorsports in up to 18 events during the 2023 NASCAR Xfinity Series season. Saturday’s update didn’t address McLaughlin’s future starts with the team, but the racer’s next scheduled start is next weekend at Phoenix Raceway.
Attempts by TobyChristie.com to obtain comment from Emerling-Gase Motorsports and McLaughlin on Saturday have gone unanswered at this time.
McLaughlin, a native of Framingham, Massachusetts has one career top-10 finish in NASCAR Xfinity Series competition, which he achieved a season ago at Texas Motor Speedway driving for RSS Racing.
The 30-year-old racer suffered a crash in the season-opening Beef. It’s What’s For Dinner. 300 at Daytona International Speedway. McLaughlin told TobyChristie.com after that crash that he believed the axle snapped on the race car to cause the incident.
