NASCAR Xfinity Series driver Matt Mills is a huge Star Wars fan, and it shows with his themed helmets and “Red Five” Xfinity car. When he makes his Cup Series début at Kansas Speedway on Sunday, he will be “Red Fifty-Five” as he pilots the #55 Ford Mustang for B.J. McLeod Motorsports.
Mills has raced for BJMM in the Xfinity Series since 2017, initially on a very limited basis before increasing his schedule in 2019. In 79 career starts, his best finish is tenth at Daytona in 2019 while he finished twenty-first and twenty-fifth in the 2019 and 2020 standings. Much of his time at BJMM has been in the #5 car with occasional switches to the team’s other vehicles.
For the 2021 season, he has exclusively been in the #5 and is currently thirty-third in points with a highest run of sixteenth in the opener at Daytona.
In three career Xfinity races at Kansas, his best finish is twentieth in 2019. Mills finished twenty-sixth and twenty-fifth in the other two races last season. He also has a start at the 1.5-mile track in the Camping World Truck Series, finishing seventeenth in 2017 for Faith Motorsports.
“Something I’ve dreamt about doing my whole life,” Mills posted on Instagram. “Can’t thank BJ and Jessica McLeod and the whole @bjmcleodmotorsports group for putting this deal together to make my Cup Series Debut this weekend @kansasspeedway.”
BJMM’s eponymous team owner will also be entered in Sunday’s Buschy McBusch Race 400 in the #78 Mustang for Live Fast Motorsports. Although McLeod co-owns LFM, the team maintains its own autonomy from BJMM. Prior to LFM’s founding in 2021, BJMM also fielded a Cup programme during the 2020 season on a part-time basis.
The #55 last appeared at the Cup level in 2018 by Premium Motorsports. During their maiden premier series schedule in 2020, BJMM utilised the #78 that LFM currently uses.
