{"id":579614,"date":"2026-04-03T13:03:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T13:03:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/579614\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T13:03:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T13:03:08","slug":"nascar-loses-a-full-time-team-just-seven-races-into-the-2026-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/579614\/","title":{"rendered":"NASCAR loses a full-time team just seven races into the 2026 season"},"content":{"rendered":"

Barrett-Cope Racing made their NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series debut in the 2026 season opener at Daytona International Speedway with Carson Ware behind the wheel of the No. 30 Chevrolet, and he finished in 19th place.<\/p>\n

They have fielded the No. 30 car in every race weekend since, and five drivers have driven the car across the season’s seven race weekends so far this year.<\/p>\n

However, the car is not on the entry list for this Saturday’s North Carolina Education Lottery 250 at Rockingham Speedway, after Ware had initially been supposed to drive it for a second time this year.<\/p>\n

Barrett-Cope Racing facing uncertain NASCAR future<\/p>\n

The team’s future is uncertain, but this isn’t the first late change they have made this season. Just one week ago, Baltazar Leguizamon, who made his season debut at Circuit of the Americas (COTA) in early March, was supposed to drive the No. 30 car again, but Myatt Snider drove it instead<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Leguizamon had also been lined up to drive the car at Watkins Glen International in May, although that is now in question as well as the team prepare to miss their first race weekend of 2026.<\/p>\n

Snider leads all drivers with three appearances for the team this year, although he has only made two starts; he made his first start of the year at Darlington Raceway<\/a> after failing to qualify<\/a> for the race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway one week prior.<\/p>\n

Carson’s brother, Cody, drove the car at EchoPark Speedway (Atlanta Motor Speedway). Austin J. Hill, not the other Austin Hill<\/a>, drove it at Phoenix Raceway.<\/p>\n

Snider matched Carson’s best finish of 19th with his own 19th place effort at Martinsville.<\/p>\n

Team co-owner Stanton Barrett has not yet driven the car this year, although he entered the season with plans to do so on select occasions.<\/p>\n

His most recent O’Reilly Series start came in 2023 at Watkins Glen International with Emerling-Gase Motorsports, although he did attempt to qualify for the 2024 season opener at Daytona for Mike Harmon Racing. In 206 career series tarts across 29 seasons, dating back to 1992, his best finish is fifth at Atlanta in 1996.<\/p>\n

Aside from Barrett-Cope Racing’s absence from the entry list, full-time team AM Racing withdrew Nick Sanchez and the No. 25 Chevrolet from this weekend’s race after having initially been lined up to compete. Their future is also in question, seven races into the season, and their withdrawal means that Hettinger Racing is now the series’ only Ford team.<\/p>\n

Rockingham Speedway is scheduled to host the North Carolina Education Lottery 250 this Saturday, April 4, with live coverage on Fox Sports 1 set to begin at 2:30 p.m. ET. Start a free trial of FuboTV<\/a> and don’t miss any of the action!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Barrett-Cope Racing made their NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series debut in the 2026 season opener at Daytona International…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":579615,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,634,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-579614","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nascar","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-nascar","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=579614"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579614\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/579615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=579614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=579614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=579614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}