In the final race of a grueling summer stretch of 21 NASCAR XFINITY Series races over 20 weeks, B.J. McLeod (@bjmcleod78) heads to Kansas Speedway hoping to improve on the team’s performance last weekend at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
While the 30th-place finish for the B.J. McLeod Motorsports team may have been a tough pill to swallow, McLeod and crew chief David Ingram Jr. did make some significant gains with their chassis late in the Drive for the Cure 300 – all with the hope it will carry over to Saturday afternoon’s Kansas Lottery 300.
“There is no quit in our team,” said McLeod. “We wanted to have a better run in our backyard at Charlotte, but sometimes the dominoes don’t always fall your way. Looking at the bigger picture, we’ve got some ideas that we can go to Kansas and be much better. As long as we continue to find ways to improve, we’re going in the right direction.”
Of course, McLeod is excited to return to Kansas Speedway, the site of his career-best finish in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series. Earlier this year, the short track ace steered Bobby Dotter’s to a career-best 15th place run. While the XFINITY Series cars and NASCAR’s trucks are a night and day difference – McLeod is still holding onto momentum from that May performance.
“The truck race was a blast, the trucks are fun to drive,” added McLeod. “Looking back, there may be some things that I can take away from the race that we can apply to this weekend. We’ll see. Kansas is just a fun place to race. It’s a mile and a half like Charlotte, but it has its own characteristics – smooth, yet fast. Should be a pretty good race for the fans on Saturday.”
With four races left on the XFINITY Series calendar, including Saturday afternoons’ event from Kansas, McLeod says his first year of being a full-time owner and driver on tour has seen its’ up and downs, but overall it’s been extremely rewarding.
“We’ve literally built this team from the ground up in a short amount of time and we’ve made some great strides along the way,” added McLeod. “Looking on the bright side, we’ve been very fortunate not to tear up a lot of race cars. Yes, we’ve had some hiccups, but we’ve persevered through them and it’s made us a better team for the long haul.
“The search is on to find that right marketing partner on a more permanent basis next year,” he said. “We’ve had a lot of great partners this year and most of them will be back, but if we can find some more partners – I think it will make us better in the grand scheme of things.”
McLeod, who will make his 73rd career NASCAR national series start this weekend welcomes Josh Reaume to the No. 15 Ford Mustang for 200 laps Saturday afternoon at Kansas. Reaume has 30 XFINITY Series starts to his credit and will make his first with B.J. McLeod Motorsports.
“Josh is a hard worker and I’m glad he’ll have a chance to race on Saturday at Kansas,” sounded McLeod. “He knows what his goals are and what our agenda is and I have faith that he’ll be able to accomplish everything and then some on Saturday afternoon. Hopefully, we’ll be able to have him back for another race before the end of the year.”
In addition to Reaume, B.J. McLeod Motorsports will field a third car this weekend at Kansas with former XFINITY Series champion Jeff Green aboard the No. 99 Ford Mustang.
Veteran industry crew chief George (David) Ingram Jr. will call the shots for the No. 78 B.J. McLeod Motorsports Ford Mustang for the 30th race of the 2016 NASCAR XFINITY Series season.
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