Trail Motorsport executives working on getting funding before returning to track

By Bob Pockrass - Associate Editor

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Trail Motorsport's Chase Austin has made two starts in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series this season.

David Griffin
NASCAR Scene

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Trail Motorsport is working on getting its organization on the race track but won’t do so until funding is in place, team managing director Patrick Shelton said Thursday in a statement.

The organization, which had hoped to run 19-year-old African-American driver Chase Austin in all of the Camping World Truck Series races as well as field a full-time Nationwide Series team, hasn’t been on the track since February.

Austin drove in two Truck races in a vehicle built and serviced by MRD Motorsports. Johnny Borneman III drove two Nationwide races with his family-owned team under the Trail banner.

The team had announced big plans at a January news conference, but after the first few weeks, the Trail organization has had to step back, Shelton said.

“You can’t run a team and cut corners,” Shelton said. “The pressure to field something for Daytona and California stemmed from our desire to deliver what we said we would at our press conference [in January]. Starting a new team isn’t easy, and starting one correctly even harder.

“We got behind with funding and encountered several unplanned situations. … We are putting the operation on hold until all of our funding is in place. The team plans to participate this year but has no intention of using other teams’ equipment or personnel to compete.”

The team owes MRD Motorsports $66,000 for the race at Auto Club Speedway in California earlier this year, according to a lawsuit in North Carolina Superior Court in Cabarrus County.

“We are also aggressively addressing any outstanding debts the team has, including MRD,” Shelton said. “It would be disingenuous to compete when those responsibilities have not been tended to.”

How many races the team does in the future will depend on funding, Shelton said.

“I’d rather do a full, partial, or limited season the right way than one race the wrong way,” Shelton said. “We owe our drivers, crew and followers the best possible resources, and obviously we are not there yet. I’m personally disappointed, but I cannot allow that feeling to override common sense. I love and respect the sport enough to know that just showing up isn’t good enough.”