Danny Bohn will make his NASCAR Xfinity Series début in the season opener at Daytona International Speedway. On Monday, Big Machine Racing announced Bohn as the driver of the #48 Chevrolet Camaro for the event, serving as a fill-in for Jade Buford before the latter takes over the car for the rest of the season.
Bohn’s 2021 NASCAR schedule is primarily concentrated in the Camping World Truck Series, where he hopes to run the full schedule for On Point Motorsports should they find sufficient funding. He began racing in the Trucks for OPM in 2019, running the final three races with an eighth-place finish in his series début at Martinsville. North American Motor Car will sponsor OPM’s #30 Toyota Tundra for Daytona and will also appear on the #48.
“North American Motor Car is extremely excited to be teamed up with Danny Bohn and Scott Borchetta‘s Big Machine Racing #48 car for Daytona,” Andy Hill of North American Motor Car said. “We believe it is going to be a breakout year for Danny and we are extremely proud to be a part of it.”
In 2020, Bohn shared the #30 with Cup Series rookie Brennan Poole, who drove the truck in the first thirteen races before exhausting his eligibility. Bohn took over for the final ten races and scored another top ten at Martinsville in the penultimate race of the season.
“Scott Borchetta and North American Motor Car have been instrumental in supporting me in my journey rising up through the stock car racing ranks,” Bohn stated in a press release. “This is just another step and to have them both on the car for Scott’s début as a team owner and my Xfinity series début makes it all the more special to me, especially being at Daytona.”
The 32-year-old Bohn mainly made his name in NASCAR’s Whelen Southern Modified Tour, where he finished second in points as a rookie in 2012. He has four wins in the now-defunct series and has also made three starts in the Whelen Modifed Tour with a best finish of eighth at Langley in 2017.
The Xfinity opener will not be Bohn’s first foray at Daytona. In 2013, he competed in the exhibition UNOH Battle at the Beach on a temporary short track built on the superspeedway’s backstretch. Racing in the Modified Tour class, his day ended in dramatic fashion when he tangled with Ryan Preece, squeezed into the wall, flipped onto his roof, and caught fire.
Big Machine Racing, formed by record label mogul Borchetta in mid-January, intended to field the #48 for Buford in all thirty-three Xfinity races in 2021. Buford, a sports car veteran who began racing in the series in 2020 as a road course ringer, was not approved to run the Daytona superspeedway race and will instead begin his 2021 schedule the following week on Daytona’s road course. While NASCAR will not allow him to race on the oval due to a lack of experience, he is certainly familiar with the RC layout as a three-time competitor in the Rolex 24 Hours.
“It’s great to be working with Danny again,” Borchetta added. “He’s a born racer and he knows how to be around at the end of these very challenging races. Daytona is the great equalizer and it takes skill, patience and staying out of trouble until it’s time to go. If he can do that, and we get a little Lady Luck on our side, we stand to have a very strong début.”
