By Caleb Whisler, Staff Writer
CONCORD, N.C. – There is a new team in NASCAR Xfinity Series competition.
H2 Motorsports announced Thursday it will join the series for the remainder of the 2019 season and beyond beginning at Iowa Speedway in June.
The team will be owned by entrepreneur and venture capitalist Matt Hurley. Shane Lee will pilot the No. 28 Circuit City Toyota Supra with Pete Rondeau as crew chief. Toyota Racing Development will also be a partner with the outlet.
Hurley is expected to become the youngest owner to enter NASCAR competition at the age of 23. From a young age, he has been an avid race fan. After gathering opinions about NASCAR, Hurley decided it was time to make a move into NASCAR racing.
“More recently, I kind of felt like there was a reason to come into the sport and leverage some of our invested brands into the sport,” Hurley said. “I’ve really taken an interest in finding a way in. Over the last year or so, I have been talking to a bunch of industry partners from within the sport, specifically spending time with Jim Cassidy getting an unbiased opinion. We felt like now was the right time to enter the sport and come in a competitive way.
“After further due diligence, I spent time with many of the OEMs and felt like TRD was the right partner to help us do that in a competitive way. Obviously, partners like Circuit City stepping up and coming to the plate made it an easy transition.”
While coming in at 23 years of age, Hurley believes that the sport as a while needs to focus in on ownership development.
Ronny Schmoel is excited to releverage the Circuit City brand within America’s premier motor sports sanctioning body.
“We are very excited about the partnership between Circuit City and NASCAR. We see the partnership flourishing over the next few years with NASCAR and Circuit City,” Schmoel said.
For Lee, the partnership with Hurley came as a mutual friendship, which turned into a deal to get behind the wheel.
“I am definitely looking forward to it,” Lee said. “It’s a great opportunity. I met Matt (Hurley) at a couple of races last year. We actually became really good friends. We weren’t even working on a racing deal until Jan./Feb. We started talking about the racing deal and them wanting to get into racing. We went from there.”
For Lee, Hurley and Rondeau, the goal is to come out of the box strong and compete for race wins.