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Tommy Baldwin Racing sells charter to Leavine Family Racing effective immediately
Another charter has been sold in the Sprint Cup Series.
Tommy Baldwin Racing said Thursday that it had sold its charter and guaranteed starting position in the Sprint Cup Series field to Leavine Family Racing. The move goes into effect for Sunday’s race at Homestead, meaning Regan Smith needs to post a fast enough speed in TBR’s No. 7 in qualifying Friday to make Sunday’s race.
Leavine Family Racing partnered with Circle Sport Racing to operate the No. 95 car driven by Michael McDowell and Ty Dillon in 2016. The team used a charter Circle Sport was given as part of the new operating agreement between team owners and NASCAR.
36 teams who participated in the Cup Series over the previous three seasons were named charter teams at the beginning of the 2016 season. A charter meant a team was guaranteed to start every Cup Series race and helped assign a valuable asset to each race team.
The charter LFR and Circle Sport used this season is the property of Circle Sport. The teams had said they’d be splitting up at the end of the season and LFR had been rumored to be in the market for a charter. Leavine has fielded the No. 59 car part-time this season and it will be at Homestead this weekend to utilize the charter it received from TBR.
TBR also said in the Facebook post announcing the deal that it would be ceasing operations as a full-time team in the Cup Series after the season. The sale of the charter is yet another sign of how tough it is to survive as a small team in the Cup Series. Yet Baldwin is at least receiving more in return for the sale of the charter than he would if he only had the assets of his race team to sell.
In 391 starts over eight years, TBR has two top-five finishes and four top-10 finishes. The team’s biggest moment — and closest miss — might have been the 2012 Daytona 500. The team’s car with Dave Blaney behind the wheel was in the lead when the race was stopped for a jet dryer fire. Had NASCAR not been able to clean the track after the fire was put out, Blaney would have won the race.
Smith is 33rd in the points standings this season and finished third in the rain-shortened race at Pocono and eighth in the Daytona 500. He moved to the team shortly before the 2016 season began after parting ways with JR Motorsports in the Xfinity Series after the 2015 season.
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Nick Bromberg is the editor of From The Marbles on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at nickbromberg@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
