It has been a difficult start to the 2022 NASCAR Xfinity Series season for Jimmy Means Racing as the team is zero-for-two in qualifying for races. JMR hopes to turn its luck around at Circuit of the Americas, and will do so with a driver making his NASCAR début. On Wednesday, the team confirmed Gar Robinson will be in the #52 Chevrolet Camaro for Saturday’s Pit Boss 250.
Robinson competes in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship for Riley Motorsports. In 2021, his second full season for the team, he won the LMP3 championship with a four-win campaign that included winning his class at the Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona. He repeated the latter in January’s Rolex 24 alongside driver and TCF columnist Kay van Berlo, Michael Cooper, and Felipe Fraga.
Prior to becoming an IMSA regular, he won the 2015 and 2017 Trans-Am Series TA2 championships. The TA2 class is often used by NASCAR drivers to gain road racing experience. After his second TA2 title, he moved to the Pirelli World Challenge, where he spent a season in the SprintX GT Pro Am class and another in GTS Sprint for his family-run team.
The team tweeted, “Jimmy Means Racing is excited to have @GarRobinson74 behind the wheel of our #52 NXS Car @COTA this weekend!”
Despite being a full-time Xfinity operation until 2021, funding issues have prompted Means to scale back to a limited slate. The team failed to qualify at Daytona and Atlanta with Harrison Rhodes, while a lack of sponsorship forced the team to skip the West Coast races. With the team too low in owner points to guarantee a spot in the COTA race, Robinson will have to make it with a strong qualifying time.
