Jesse Little will move to B.J. McLeod Motorsports for the 2021 NASCAR Xfinity Series season. On Tuesday, the team announced Little will drive their #78 Chevrolet Camaro for his sophomore year in the series.
“B.J. and Jessica (McLeod) have placed an amazing opportunity in front of me,” Little stated. “The strides that B.J. McLeod Motorsports has made since its inception just a few short years ago are incredible. As the motorsports landscape continues to shift, I felt that it was important to align myself with an organization that acknowledges that shift and is working hard to improve all aspects of the organization. The foundation that has been laid by those before me, and those currently here is solid and we’re going to build on that foundation in a big way this year. I can’t wait to get started.”
2020 marked Little’s rookie season in the Xfinity Series after racing on a part-time basis in the Camping World Truck Series for the last five years. Driving for JD Motorsports, he finished nineteenth in points with a pair of tenth-place finishes at Pocono and the August Daytona oval race. He also ran three Truck races for Diversified Motorsports Enterprises with a best finish of twenty-first at Charlotte; the team was previously owned by his uncle Jason. A member of the NASCAR Next Class of 2015, he has seven career top tens in the Trucks. The son of former Cup Series veteran Chad Little, he also has two Cup starts in 2018.
Litte is BJMM’s first confirmed full-time driver for 2021. In 2020, the #78 was driven by a plethora of drivers including the team owner, finishing twenty-fourth in the owners’ standings with a best run of eleventh by Vinnie Miller at Daytona. The team also fields the #5 and #99, neither of which have revealed drivers outside of Ryan Ellis and Josh Bilicki on limited schedules.
“We’re excited to have Jesse join our organization,” McLeod said. “He is a great addition to our team as we continue to grow and improve on and off the track. Jessica and I have great people working with us at BJ McLeod Motorsports and Jesse adds to that. He is a team player with support from fantastic partners, we are looking forward to the journey ahead of us.”
McLeod, who has operated BJMM since 2016, is also an owner/driver at the Cup level. After a part-time schedule in the premier series in 2020 with BJMM, he will run the full 2021 campaign with Live Fast Motorsports, a team he formed alongside Matt Tifft and Joe Falk.
