Jennifer Jo Cobb will make her NASCAR Cup Series début at Talladega Superspeedway. On Tuesday, Rick Ware Racing announced Cobb will drive the #15 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE in the GEICO 500 on 25 April with sponsorship from Arrowhead Brass and Fastener Supply.
“I am so thankful for this opportunity with RWR, and greatly appreciate Arrowhead Brass for coming on board to help make this happen,” Cobb said in a team release. “It’s also exciting to have my longtime sponsor at Fastener Supply to extend their support as well. I have a long history with RWR and a lot of respect for this organisation.
“This team has a lot of heart and reminds me a lot of my small team competing against such mammoth organizations. I am proud of what RWR has accomplished and I want nothing more than to make the team, Arrowhead Brass, and all my sponsors and supporters proud of this effort.”
Cobb has driven for her own team, Jennifer Jo Cobb Racing, in the Camping World Truck Series since 2010. A small organisation, Cobb scored the team’s lone top-ten finish with a sixth at Daytona—also a superspeedway—in 2011. In the 2020 Talladega Truck race, she led a career-high sixteen laps before finishing twenty-fourth; her second-best led-lap total is three in the 2018 Talladega event. She is currently thirty-thrid in the standings with a best run of eighteenth in the opener at Daytona.
The 47-year-old has thirty-one career races in the Xfinity Series, the last being a twenty-ninth in 2018 at Talladega. She also competed in the NASCAR Whelen Euro Series in 2018 and 2019; Cobb will be the eighth driver to race in both the NWES and Cup Series, joining Hall of Famer Bobby Labonte, reigning NWES champion Alon Day, current Xfinity driver Jeffrey Earnhardt, Marc Goossens, Max Papis, Victor Gonzalez Jr., and Jacques Villeneuve (Rick Crawford and Dale Quarterley failed to qualify in their Cup attempts). Cobb’s team also fielded a truck for EuroNASCAR PRO driver Justin Kunz in his lone CWTS race in 2018.
She will also be the first female Cup driver since Danica Patrick, who retired from NASCAR after the 2018 Daytona 500. Janet Guthrie, Patty Moise, and Patrick have raced at Talladega at the top level, with Patrick holding the best finish of the trio with a nineteenth in the 2014 fall race; unlike the others, Patrick is the only female driver to have a full-time Cup ride. Cobb’s best Talladega finish is eleventh in 2018.
“Being a female in a male dominated sport is not an easy task, especially for as long as Jennifer has been competing in NASCAR,” said team owner Rick Ware. “I hope that she has a successful first NASCAR Cup Series debut and look forward to Arrowhead Brass making their NASCAR sponsorship debut at Talladega as the primary sponsor on Jennifer’s car.”
RWR’s #15 has been shared by various drivers in 2021 including Derrike Cope, James Davison, Joey Gase, and Chris Windom. After eight races, the car sits thirty-sixth in owner points with Davison holding the best finish of twenty-second in Sunday’s Martinsville event.
