Leavine Family Racing to Close after 2020 NASCAR Cup Season
The Leavine Family Racing NASCAR Cup Series team has been sold but will finish the 2020 season as currently constructed with driver Christopher Bell.
Team owner Bob Leavine confirmed the decision on Tuesday morning and struck both a somber and frustrated tone during a media teleconference that detailed the circumstances that led to this outcome.
The 75-year-old says he sold the No. 95 team to protect his 41-year-old construction firm, which has been struck hard by the global COVID-19 pandemic this summer.
"That was a big factor and the business model of NASCAR, sponsorship, obviously when the pandemic hit, we shut down," Leavine said. "That in itself, we looked at our marketing people and we are going to be lucky to sell $50,000 worth (of sponsorship) for the rest of the year. Big companies are going bankrupt. They can’t invest in something that has no more return than what they are going to get during a pandemic.
"It was the perfect storm. With that coming, NASCAR shutting down and the business model, and our biggest sponsor – ourselves – so all of those things, combined. Matt (DiLiberto, co-owner), my partner, the largest real estate firm in New York, they were hit very hard. It was a perfect storm from the wrong direction."
The assets were sold to an undisclosed buyer, widely believed to be Spire Motorsports, and includes the team’s ownership charter, race shop and equipment inventory. The chassis and bodies used by the team this year belong to Joe Gibbs Racing and will go back to that organization by the end of the year.
LFR is the second team in three years to close after becoming a Joe Gibbs Racing satellite operation.
Furniture Row Racing won the 2017 Cup Series champion with Martin Truex Jr. before shuttering after the 2018 season. The Denver, Colorado based team was forced to closed due to an increase in satellite fees from Gibbs and the loss of sponsorship from 5 Hour Energy.
Most Furniture Row Racing employees, including Truex, moved to the Gibbs No. 19 team last season and Leavine became a Gibbs sattelite program in 2020. Gibbs loaned Bell, its top development driver, as part of the agreement.
Leavine has been a frequent critic of the current NASCAR business model, but was hoping the Next-Generation race car and its promised cost containment elements would allow him to continue forward.
The pandemic has delayed the new car to the 2022 season at the earliest and Leavine couldn’t keep both the team and his construction business simultaneously afloat.
The ownership charter permits a team guaranteed entry into every race and was created in 2016 with the intent of providing guaranteed value in the event that an owner wanted or needed to sell.
Leavine did not disclose the amount he sold his charter for but indicated that there was not a return on his initial investment.
"Well, if we had been one of the recipients of a free charter, it would have probably been more impactful," Leavine said. "But we were one of the ones who had to buy our charter. We definitely did not get out of our charter, what we put into our charter.
"So, from our standpoint, it is very difficult to say that it was a great investment. It just allowed us to run full time for the five years after we bought it. That’s the best thing I can say for the charter system."
Leavine Family Racing also had 11 races in which he could not secure a sponsor for Bell, and the pandemic all but guaranteed he would not secure funding for those events, essentially forcing this outcome.
"We had a whole lot of things banking on the Next Gen (car) coming in," Leavine said. "Our deal with JGR, our affiliation required us to do certain things. We were looking forward to being a standalone team with one or two cars. So, the pandemic, and sponsorship and how it affected WRL, our major sponsor, and then having to come back and buy all the cars again for next year, because we had planned on not needing cars next year. It was a snowball effect on multiple things.
"We saw no way out. We could not afford the affiliation, and what we did this year, next year. That’s what we banked on. Okay, we will do this one year, run good, get our charter value up, and we had a plan. That plan came tumbling down with the pandemic. Then you take a bad business model; it doesn’t work for us."
Leavine said that having to sell has left "a bad taste in my mouth to be perfectly candid" and that he was not satisfied with NASCAR's business model, especially pertaining to how it resumed competition in the aftermath of the coronavirus shutdown this spring.
He did not divulge the specifics of that disagreement.
"I had lobbied for a lot of things to change in NASCAR with a lot of owners and was very disappointed in what came out of that meeting," Leavine said. "I knew that was probably going to be the straw that broke our back. I had to start looking for how best to protect our team. How best do we keep people employed? A lot of things went into that decision.
"Knowing after we started getting into it, and I knew that I was coming up here today to talk to the team. It’s probably one of the most difficult things I’ve encountered and had to do because of our 10 years. I really gave it all I had for the 10 years and the last five primarily when we went full-time, and I committed, and I thought we could make a difference and be a good team."
Leavine Family Racing has not won a race in 240 starts, most of its time spent as an underfunded mid-pack team. Its driver roster has included Matt DiBenedetto, Kasey Kahne, Regan Smith, Michael McDowell and Scott Speed.
Leavine wanted to create a "responsible and respected team" and felt the weight on Tuesday of not having accomplished that goal.
"To walk away and not have completed that, I’ve never had to do that before and give up on anything," Leavine said. "But I could not let it destroy our business – a 41-year old business – in Texas during these times, so you have to protect something and that’s a profitable organization and I cannot rape, pillage and plunder. It’s like having two kids, and you have to decide which one lives, and which one doesn’t. It’s gut wrenching."
