Hearing that the Trail Motorsport #32 team is planning to be back on the entry list at Kansas with Chase Austin driving. Also hearing that the team is lacking equipment on hand, and along with financial constraints [resulting from the recent lease of the Petty shop], have this team in the midst of reevaluating how many races they’ll run.(3-25-2009)
UPDATE: Another Truck race, another absence for African-American prodigy-in-limbo Chase Austin, who was supposed to run the full season for African-American owned Trail Motorsport. What continues to be up – or down – as Austin’s name goes missing from the entry list for Saturday’s Truck race at Martinsville? “It’s because we’re still doing all the stuff we need to do to get our house in order,” Trail managing director Patrick Shelton said Tuesday in a telephone interview. Austin, 19, ran the first two races of the season, at Daytona and Fontana, and finished 13th and 23rd respectively. But that was in vehicles rented from other teams. “Everything that was originally laid out is still in place,” Shelton said Tuesday. “We had to modify, based on what’s transpired in the last month. But we still have Nationwide plans, Camping World East and then Camping World Truck series plans.” So now, with the regrouping, Austin is scheduled to run in the next Truck race, at Kansas City on April 25. Austin said he still doesn’t have a full-season contract, as had been planned, but that he has been paid for the Daytona and Fontana races. Shelton said a contract for Austin is “in the final stages,” as well as one for Johnson, and for a Nationwide driver still to be named.(ESPN Insider)(3-6-2009)
UPDATE 2: Trail Motorsport had hoped to field a NASCAR Camping World Truck Series entry for Austin for the 2009 season (as well as a Nationwide Series car for a to-be-named driver), but after two races in enlisting MRD Motorsports to field a truck for the team and Austin, the organization has missed the last two events while regrouping and getting its own trucks prepared. Austin said the Trail team believes it can get a truck ready for him to race at Kansas Speedway, the site of the Truck series’ next scheduled event. Clint Cram, whose experience includes working at Dale Earnhardt Inc., will be his crew chief. Austin admits that he doesn’t know how much momentum he will bring from the start of the season since his earlier trucks were prepared by MRD Motorsports. Trail just finalized plans to go to Kansas a couple of days ago and will have to spend several long days at the shop to get a truck ready, Austin said.(SceneDaily.com)(4-16-2009)
UPDATE 3: Chase Austin was informed in a team meeting this past Tuesday that his Trail Motorsport team’s entry in this Saturday’s NASCAR Camping World Truck Series “O’Reilly Auto Parts 250” will be withdrawn due to funding issues. “We had set a deadline of Monday for the Truck to be ready to ‘shake down’ at Rockingham, and that didn’t happen,” said a surprisingly upbeat Austin. “So I knew what we were going to hear in the meeting. I’m really more disappointed for the team than for myself. I really want to race, but the guys in the shop have families to feed, and they need steady work and a steady paycheck” Austin’s future at Trail Motorsport is tenuous at best. “I don’t have a clue what Trail plans to do moving forward; I don’t have a contract at this point. I’ll just keep praying, keep digging and make the most out of any seat time I can get until the right opportunity comes,” says Austin. “And I definitely still believe it will come.”(Chase Austin PR)(4-22-2009)
UPDATE 4: Trail Motorsport is working on getting its organization on the race track but won’t do so until funding is in place, team managing director Patrick Shelton said Thursday in a statement. The organization, which had hoped to run 19-year-old African-American driver Chase Austin in all of the the Camping World Truck Series races as well as field a full-time Nationwide Series team, hasn’t been on the track since February. Austin drove in two Truck races in a vehicle built and serviced by MRD Motorsports. Johnny Borneman III drove two Nationwide races with his family-owned team under the Trail banner. The team had announced big plans at a January news conference, but after the first few weeks, the Trail organization has had to step back, Shelton said. “”We got behind with funding and encountered several unplanned situations. We are putting the operation on hold until all of our funding is in place. The team plans to participate this year but has no intention of using other teams’ equipment or personnel to compete.” The team owes MRD Motorsports $66,000 for the race at Auto Club Speedway in California earlier this year, according to a lawsuit in North Carolina Superior Court in Cabarrus County. How many races the team does in the future will depend on funding, Shelton said. “I’d rather do a full, partial, or limited season the right way than one race the wrong way,” Shelton said.(SceneDaily.com)(4-23-2009)
