Caesar Bacarella might be the co-owner of Alpha Prime Racing, but he’s open to racing for other teams if approached. In Saturday’s case, he will attempt the NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Atlanta Motor Speedway in the #66 Chevrolet Camaro for MBM Motorsports.
“Welcome to the team Caesar Bacarella! The Alpha Prime Racing co-owner and CEO of Alpha Prime USA will be driving the #66 Chevrolet this weekend at Atlanta Motor Speedway. His ride will feature Alpha Prime Supplements’ Prime Bites Protein Brownies,” reads the team announcement.
Bacarella has owned Alpha Prime alongside Tommy Joe Martins since 2021; the team name refers to Bacarella’s company Alpha Prime USA, which sells sports apparel and workout supplements with a product from the latter division being his sponsor on the #66. APR fields the #43, #44, and #45 cars full-time; Ryan Ellis makes the bulk of the #43’s schedule, the #44 is exclusively piloted by Jeffrey Earnhardt, and the #45 is filled by multiple drivers including Rajah Caruth, Leland Honeyman Jr., and Sage Karam. Bacarella was to run the Daytona opener in the #45 but stomach problems sidelined him and Stefan Parsons took over for the race.
A fourth APR car numbered #42 was briefly on the entry list for Atlanta before being withdrawn.
The 47-year-old has raced in NASCAR since 2017 with twenty-four career starts for APR, B.J. McLeod Motorsports, and DGM Racing. His best finish is twelfth at Daytona in 2021 with DGM; all four of his career top-twenty finishes have come on superspeedways. While Atlanta is not a superspeedway, it produces relatively similar racing due to its reconfigured layout. Bacarella finished twenty-eighth at the second Atlanta race in 2022.
He will hope to turn around the #66’s fortunes as it failed to qualify for three of the first four races in 2023 with Timmy Hill, Mason Maggio, and Dexter Stacey. Hill made the Fontana race and finished thirty-second. Brian Weber was supposed to race at Phoenix but felt he needed more time to prepare, prompting Hill to take over for the event.
