MT. PLEASANT, Mich. — Beard Motorsports is the first non-chartered NASCAR Cup Series team to announce its intention to compete in the 64th running of the Daytona 500 on Feb. 20 at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway.
The generational race team founded by the late Mark Beard Sr., and now run by his wife, Linda Beard, has procured a NextGen chassis for its use in 2022, beginning with the Daytona 500. Plans are for the No. 62 Beard Oil Distributing Chevrolet Camaro to compete in subsequent races at Daytona and its sister track, Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway. A driver has not yet been determined.
“My father was passionate about racing and he took a great deal of pride in coming to Daytona and competing against the biggest names in the sport,” said Amie Beard, executive vice president, Beard Motorsports. “He passed away just before this year’s Daytona 500 and his presence was definitely missed. We didn’t make the race, and with no qualifying available at the other superspeedway races, we didn’t have the opportunity to race again. We’ve got some unfinished business, and that’s why we’re coming back to Daytona.”
Beard Motorsports employs just one full-time person – crew chief Darren Shaw – and has since its debut in the 2017 Daytona 500 when driver Brendan Gaughan finished 11th. It has an alliance with Richard Childress Racing (RCR) and runs only the superspeedway races at Daytona and Talladega. This singular focus has yielded solid results, mostly recently a pair of top-10 finishes at Daytona in 2020 – seventh in the Daytona 500 and eighth in the Coke Zero Sugar 400 – both at the hands of Gaughan, who now serves as the team’s vice president of racing operations.