In a first for the team, MBM Motorsports will field two cars in a Monster Energy Cup Series field. For Saturday’s Digital Ally 400 at Kansas Speedway, MBM will run the #66 Toyota Camry for Timmy Hill and a new #46 Camry for Joey Gase. The two cars were initially listed on the entry list, with Gase confirming the #46 on Twitter.
MBM currently fields four cars in the NASCAR Xfinity Series for Hill, Gase, Chad Finchum, and various other drivers. The trio are grouped together in the standings, with Gase, who has run every race so far in 2019, in twenty-seventh, while Hill is behind him in twenty-eighth, having entered all but one event. Finchum is twenty-ninth after participating in every race outside of the season opener at Daytona International Speedway. Other drivers who have competed for the team in 2019 include John Jackson, Stan Mullis, Max Tullman, Colin Garrett, and Hill’s brother Tyler.
The team made its Cup début in 2017 with team owner Carl Long. Driving the #66 in the spring Kansas race, Long finished thirty-first in his first Cup points race since 2006 and his first attempt in the series since 2009. Between 2009 and 2016, he had been prohibited from competing in a premier series race following a severe penalty for an engine infraction leading up to the 2009 Cup All-Star Race. He and NASCAR eventually reached an agreement to secure his return.
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The Cup programme has competed in 37 series races between 2017 and 2019. Hill holds the team’s best run of fourteenth in the 2017 Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. In 2019, MBM has operated the #66 for Gase and Hill in six attempts; after failing to qualify for the season-opening Daytona 500, the car appeared in five races, with Gase recording the highest finish of thirty-third at Richmond Raceway.
The #46, which last saw Cup action in 2016 with the now-defunct HScott Motorsports, was also used by Long in the series.
“[W]e have grown to a point where we have 4 Xfinity teams, a 2nd Cup team starting in Kansas,”Long wrote in a Facebook post in late April detailing his team’s financial and manpower efforts. “Our in house engine program now has over 40 Cup and Xfinity engines. Each week there are three big rigs headed to the track and a 2 car gooseneck / dually. A weekly payroll with great leaders […]. This has all been accomplished with very little sponsor $ and more on keeping costs at a minimum. Other crews fly to the track and get several rental cars, we drive. Anywhere we could get used items vs new, we do.”
Both cars are guaranteed spots in the race as the field has reached its maximum 40-entry capacity. In four career Cup starts at Kansas, Gase’s best finish is thirty-fourth in 2016, while Hill’s highest run in his eight races is twenty-second in 2012.
