(WORM file photo)
Swan Racing announced it has successfully restructured the company by finding solutions for the #26 and #30 teams in an attempt to save the jobs of the crews, the drivers, and to keep those teams competing throughout the 2014 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. As a result, Anthony Marlowe has merged his ownership of the #26 team into BK Racing, effective immediately. It was announced that Cole Whitt will remain behind the wheel of the #26.
Additionally, the #30 team has been sold to John Cohen of XxxTreme Motorsports, which will operate the team going forward and intends to compete with veteran driver J.J. Yeley. Stephen “Bones” Lane will serve as crew chief and be joined by several other former Swan Racing crewmembers. Driver of the #30 car, Parker Kligerman, remains under contract with Swan Racing, which will seek to identify options for him to get back on track.
Team owner Brandon Davis issued the following statement:
“I want to first thank our employees, fans, and others in the NASCAR industry for their patience and understanding over the past several days, while we work out the future of Swan Racing. As previously stated, the team is restructuring due to a lack of additional funding. However, over the past couple weeks we worked tirelessly to find an alternative to ending operations. Fortunately, we were able to find a home for the #26 team and the #30 team thanks to Anthony Marlowe and Jonathan Cohen respectively. “Anthony and Jonathan are both young and ambitious NASCAR enthusiasts. It is important to keep them in the sport for the long term. I am very relieved to know that the #26 and #30 teams will be in good hands, and will continue to compete the remainder of the 2014 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season. Most importantly, most of the team members have the opportunity to continue their employment in the sport and to support their families. This was critically important to me. Swan Racing is exploring any and all options to keep Parker Kligerman on track throughout the season. We are encouraged by the response we have received from interested parties. Parker continues to be one of the most talented young drivers in NASCAR. He brought this racing team one of its strongest results in his first race with us, and we are certain of his success in the future.(Swan Racing PR)
“It went from a lot of fun to a nightmare in a matter of months,” [Swan Racing owner] Brandon Davis told NASCAR.com by telephone Wednesday, after his race team farmed off both its NASCAR Sprint Cup Series cars to other organizations. “I’m not going to point my finger in any one direction. It was just the overall thing, probably adding two cars, etc. … There were challenges there.” Davis, whose Swan Energy oil and gas company has bankrolled the team for most of its brief existence. Davis was willing to dig into his pockets to get the team going last year, when it fielded one car. But he expanded to two entries for 2014 and had hoped to subsist on sponsorship dollars, and the pieces simply didn’t come together in time to keep the organization operational. Combine that with the time demands of Davis’ growing oil and gas businesses, and it added up to difficulty from the first weeks of the season. Davis added he’s retained a few people to help “wind things down” with Swan Racing, and can’t foresee the team returning to the track in any capacity in the immediate future. Although Swan lacked sufficient sponsorship dollars, money wasn’t the only issue — expansion to two cars took more of a toll than Davis expected, and the demands of his day job cut into the available time he had to help the race team grow. With two cars now in the stable, everything took double the time, money, and effort. The financial amount contributed to the team by Swan Energy, Davis said, was used up in a matter of weeks. Asked if expanding to two cars proved too much, he did not mince words. “Yes. Most definitely.”(NASCAR.com)
This from Xxxtreme Motorsports Twitter, the team will run the #30 Chevy at Richmond, then switch back to the #44 starting at Talladega, and have the owners points / race attempts from the #30 team .
Once again, a young wanna be NASCAR race team owner finds out that, in order to be a successful NASCAR team owner, there needs to be an unending amount of available liquid cash available, as well as a MAJOR credible sponsor!
TIL NEXT TIME, I AM STILL WORKING ON MY REDNECK!
