Alpha Prime Racing, which fielded the No. 43, No. 44, and No. 45 entries full-time during the 2023 NASCAR Xfinity Series season, will drop the No. 45 car to a part-time schedule in 2024.
Team co-owner Caesar Bacarella is the first driver who has been announced to pilot the car for the upcoming season. Bacarella will slide behind the wheel of the Chevrolet Camaro in the four superspeedway events beginning with the season-opening event at Daytona International Speedway.
The team announced via a post shared to X, formerly Twitter, on Wednesday.
45 days until @DAYTONA! ??
Our #45 will run a partial schedule in 2024, featuring @AlphaBacarella in at least 4 SuperSpeedway events beginning at Daytona.
Additional details on events and driver lineup will be released soon. pic.twitter.com/rcsfFgEHs0
— Alpha Prime Racing (@TeamAlphaPrime) January 3, 2024
Bacarella, 50, has 29 starts in his NASCAR Xfinity Series career, and the Florida native scored his first-career top-10 finish with a ninth-place effort at Talladega Superspeedway in 2023.
Alpha Prime Racing was a team on the rise throughout the 2022 NASCAR Xfinity Series season, but as the organization expanded to three full-time teams in 2023, the team regressed overall.
Much of the regression could also be attributed to a NASCAR Xfinity Series rule change, which affected the skew settings on the chassis in the series. Many independent teams including Jeremy Clements Racing and RSS Racing struggled in 2023 compared to how they performed in the years before the rule changes.
The organization is looking for a bounce-back effort in 2024.
