Bill Davis Racing majority owners hope to field Cup car in 2009
New Bill Davis Racing majority owners Marty Gaunt and Mike Held say they hope to have the No. 22 NASCAR Sprint Cup car on the track in 2009 but likely won’t be able to announce firm plans for another few weeks.
Gaunt and Held announced Monday that their Triad Racing Technologies had purchased a majority interest in BDR as well as the entire Triad Racing Development sister company from Bill and Gail Davis.
In 2008, BDR operated one full-time Cup team with driver Dave Blaney and has operated a successful program in trucks with 2008 champ Johnny Benson, Mike Skinner and others. It lost sponsor Caterpillar for its Cup car to Richard Childress Racing for 2009 and saw Benson and much of his crew leave for Red Horse Racing for next year.
Two of BDR’s trucks have been assigned to drivers Brian Scott and Tayler Malsam. No driver has been announced for the third truck.
Held, a former NASCAR team owner and California businessman, owns Co-Pilott LLC, a racing marketing company that handles accounts such as Menards and Sony.
“Our plan is we’d like to see the 22 on the track next year, and clearly with regard to the truck programs, we want to see all [three] of those on the track next year, but we won’t have a specific plan on how all of that will come together until sometime in January,” Held said Monday.
Gaunt added that Mark Chambers will remain as general manager with other leadership positions at BDR to be determined in the next few weeks.
BDR has competed in NASCAR for more than 20 years, and Jeff Gordon won the 1991 rookie title in what is now the Nationwide Series for the team. BDR first competed in Cup in 1993 and has five wins, including the 2002 Daytona 500 with Ward Burton.
Bill Davis will be available as a consultant, Gaunt indicated.
“Bill has been around the sport for a long time, and he’s won in all divisions, in Truck, in Nationwide and Cup,” Gaunt said. “The guy has won the Daytona 500. We’re going to look at him as we get into tough decisions. We can call upon Bill, and he can lead us and give us advice.”
