MBM Motorsports NASCAR Cup Series driver Timmy Hill has become a Cinderella story of the sport’s COVID-19 quarantine. He’s run no worse than third in every virtual event in the sport’s Pro Invitational Series, run on the same dates during the coronavirus pandemic as now-postponed 2020 Cup events.
But on the real racetrack, both Hill and his team find themselves on financial life support. With rumblings of the NASCAR season resuming in the near future, MBM sits in a precarious position to restart its engine along with it.
When North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper issued a statewide stay-at-home-order on Monday, March 30, Carl Long, owner of MBM, had to let all of his employees go. The underdog operation, attempting its first full-time Cup season, was unable to keep roughly 30 people on payroll.
Though Long had to lay off his entire race shop, the owner’s been active, helping out any of the workers that need financial help. Over the past three weeks, he’s loaned some of those people cash, understanding they’re living “paycheck to paycheck.”
“I’ve just taken money out of the team and given them a loan, and hopefully, they get reimbursed from the government,” he says. “If they don’t, it’ll just be money we threw out the door, but they’re a part of [this team].”
See more at Frontstretch.