By AMANDA VINCENT
A new team, FRS Racing, planned its NASCAR Xfinity Series debut April 1 in the Toyota Care 250 at Richmond (Va.) Raceway, but when rain resulted in the cancellation of qualifying, the team didn’t make the race.
FRS plans to field a No. 96 Chevrolet part-time this season with hopes of competing full-time in the Xfinity Series next year. The team, owned by Collin Fern, has a technical alliance with Richard Childress Racing and was started with assets purchased from the now-defunct Brandonbilt Motorsports, Fern’s former employer.
Fern handled marketing and public relations for Brandonbilt and was the team’s Technical Director when it shut down at the end of the 2022 season.
“FRS Racing is the culmination of an entire off-season’s worth of hard work trying to build a brand from scratch,” Fern said. “I am extremely excited for this opportunity, and I cannot thank Jerry Brown and David Clarke enough for their visions and belief in me to carry on what they’ve built. I look forward to being on track part-time in 2023, with the hope that we can be full-time come the 2024 season.”
Brandonbilt’s closure is assumed to be due, at least in part, to a sponsorship fiasco last year involving a “Let’s Go Brandon” themed cryptocurrency that NASCAR would not approve to be featured on a car to be driven by Brandon Brown. The company producing the coin has since filed a lawsuit against NASCAR.
Kyle Weatherman was slated to drive the No. 96 at Richmond, and plans put Max McLaughlin in the car for the road-course race at Watkins Glen (N.Y.) International on Aug. 19. Other plans for the 2023 Xfinity season have not been announced.
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