#19 Humphrey Smith Racing team owner, Randy Humphrey comments on 2012 plans. ‘It’s taken us a little longer than we planned, and been a little tougher than we thought, but we ‘re working at it,’ said Humphrey, who fielded Mike Bliss ‘ #19 Toyota in Sunday’s STP 400 at Kansas Speedway. ‘We ‘ve been thankful to be here, and NASCAR’s really been good to allow us to keep working at it and it’s been good to us. We ‘re trying to build our program into a bigger program. It’s all about people, it’s all about sponsors and making everything go.’ Humphrey, a veteran racer himself, is in his first season with new business partner Mark Smith after he and previous partner Phil Parsons [was #66, now #98] decided to part ways after the 2011 season. ‘Phil and I made a decision to do something different,’ said Humphrey, who stayed in Topeka during the Speedway race weekend. ‘They went a different direction and we went a different direction. We partnered up with Mark Smith, who has been building our motors for four years and owns three Nationwide teams,’ Humphrey said. ‘We rented a new big shop. Bliss had been driving for us before, and we got Mike to drive for us.’ The #19 car has qualified in three of four races, including the Kansas race, since getting a belated start to the year. ‘We waited a few races to get ourselves acclimated, to get our equipment built up and get our stuff in order and find the right people,’ Humphrey said. ‘We ‘re now moving forward and have done really well since we started.’ Humphrey’s team continues to employ a start-and-park strategy in most races to save money but has sponsors set up to be able to run complete races later in the season and also will race out of pocket in others. The long-term goal is be able go full bore in the series. ‘My whole mission is to race,’ Humphrey said. ‘I moved from Kansas to Charlotte to race. Our whole mission is to make this into a full-time racing program, with sponsorship. We ‘ve talked to some Kansas companies, we ‘ve talked to some Topeka-based companies and we ‘re hoping some of those will take notice of us and work with us and come along and help us build our program.’(Topeka Capital Journal)(4-23-2012)
