DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — NASCAR Cup Series team owner and driver B.J. McLeod is less of an underdog these days and it’s because of the new Next Gen race car that makes its regular season debut in Sunday’s Daytona 500 at Daytona Int’l Speedway.
McLeod co-owns Live Fast Motorsports with former driver Matt Tifft. He also drives the No. 78 Ford Mustang.
McLeod, whose wife Jessica is the team’s general manager, believes it’s an exciting time for his team and NASCAR race as a whole.
“The point of being here at this time is just exciting and it’s definitely been the strangest offseason, too, because usually you’re not worried about knowing if you could build the car or get the car ready,” McLeod said. “It’s a car you’ve dealt with for years and all the people have worked on it for decades and it’s not a big deal. This car is a new car, so everybody is learning. The mechanics are learning, crew chiefs are learning, owners are learning, drivers are learning.
“To me, it’s the most exciting time I’ve ever seen and I’ve been watching NASCAR since the late ’80s and I’ve been a part of NASCAR for almost 20 years. It, to me, is the most exciting time I’ve seen since I’ve been around.”
McLeod calls the Next Gen car a game-changer for small teams.
“This car is so uniformed for Hendrick versus Live Fast Motorsports,” he continued. “Hendrick can’t have any different upright than I can. They can’t have any different A-frame than I have. They can’t have any different front or rear clip or anything. It’s literally the same parts on their car as my car.
“Like I said, they have many more resources there. Winners are always winners. It doesn’t matter what you do with the rulebook, but it still makes it for the fans watching that they know I have the same car that Hendrick has.”
As a result, McLeod believes some of the smaller teams will have more success on the race track.
“I strongly feel that you’re gonna see some smaller teams have some crazy runs that you would have never seen the last however many years,” McLeod said “I believe that’s gonna happen this year. Whether it’s me or Corey LaJoie or Rick Ware Racing or Front Row or whatever, I believe that you’re gonna see some top 10s, top 15s, some regular top 20s that you just didn’t see before.”
McLeod’s best Cup Series finish is ninth at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway. He is also fielding a three-car team in the Xfinity Series this season.
“We’re looking for a lot on that side this year. I guess the series is the most stacked it’s been since I believe 2014 as far as car count,” McLeod said. “There is a lot of mid-pack cars that we race a lot, so I believe now that we have the capability to run 12th, I really believe that.
“We have upgraded our cars. We have got different crew members. We’ve got three separate crew chiefs finally for all the teams, which I know sounds crazy, but we did it with one crew chief at the shop and then two crew chiefs that came to the track the last six years, so we actually have three full-time crew chiefs,” he added. “We’ve just been building that program very slowly to make sure we didn’t go out of business.”