For some teams, the goal is to win a race, make the Chase for the Sprint Cup, or even compete in the Championship Round at Homestead-Miami Speedway. For others, the goal is to simply make the race every weekend.
RAB Racing and Team XTREME Racing are prime examples of small organizations struggling to make races week-in and week-out.
In 2015, RAB Racing has attempted to qualify for all five races thus far with two different drivers. At Daytona, it was Justin Marks attempting to make his superspeedway debut. In the other four races at Atlanta, Las Vegas, Phoenix and Fontana, it was Reed Sorenson behind the wheel of the No. 29 Toyota. There is a common denominator for all five-race weekends: RAB Racing has failed to make the race each time and at Phoenix, they even withdrew from the event.
With zero owner points, the No. 29 team must qualify inside of the top 36 in order to make the race on any given weekend. Unfortunately, for the Robby Benton-owned team, at none of the first five tracks the team has done so. Going back to the 2014 season, the team has failed to make its last eight races that they have attempted.
The team put its focus on running the complete NASCAR Sprint Cup Series schedule after it was announced that James Buescher would be going back to the Camping World Truck Series without any funding for RAB Racing to replace Rheem, who went to Richard Childress Racing with driver Ty Dillon. In one full season of XFINITY Series competition, the former Truck Series champion had just two top-10 finishes.
Back in 2013, Alex Bowman drove the No. 99 XFINITY car for RAB Racing. Over the course of the season Bowman finished with six top 10s and two pole positions, both coming at Texas Motor Speedway.
Now that the team has yet to make a race in the 2015 season, it is time to go back to the drawing board. What RAB Racing really needs is a primary sponsor that will support the funding of the team throughout the year. The team has received help from Toyota over the past several seasons, but a lack of sponsorship had brought its Cup Series experience to a climax.
Team XTREME is a whole other story.
The aforementioned Sorenson signed a multi-race deal with Team XTREME to drive in the Daytona 500, along with a few other events, with Golden Corral on board. Sorenson had to race his way in due to being low in owner points heading into the “Great American Race.”
During Daytona 500 qualifying, the No. 44 was involved in an altercation with Clint Bowyer, Bobby Labonte and J.J. Yeley. Sorenson put up a quick time. However, his car was wrecked, so he could not make it into the second round. The team had to go back to the shop Sunday night and prepare a new car in order to get back down to southern Florida by Thursday to race in the Budweiser Duels. Sorenson evidently drove the car to a seventh-place finish and made the biggest race of the season.
The team finished on the lead lap in the Daytona 500, but got in a last-lap incident with Jeff Gordon and others. After Daytona, it has been a rough start to the season for the team.
Prior to the race weekend at Atlanta Motor Speedway, the No. 44 car had been stolen out of a hotel parking lot on a secondary team hauler. John Cohen, the owner of the race team, had to forego the race at Atlanta because they literally had no racecar.
Travis Kvapil even tweeted “Wow. Anyone near Atlanta find my stolen Cup Car let me know. Unreal.”
Since Atlanta, Team XTREME has failed to make any of the Sprint Cup Series races. With a relatively young team in NASCAR’s top-tier division the team has only competed in 15 races with a best finish of 34th at Sonoma last season with Yeley behind the wheel.
The team has a full-time sponsor in Phoenix Warehouse, so the money is there. However, the Chevrolet team needs to make an alliance with another organization in order to see results.
The team has had veterans such as Kvapil, Yeley, and David Reutimann drive for them, as well as younger drivers like Timmy Hill. It will be crucial that the No. 44 team finds something to build around for the rest of the 2015 season so that they can make races and even be competitive in those races.
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