LASTCAR EXTRA: Leavine Family Racing Expects To Return To Shop After Kentucky

The Leavine Family Racing #95 at Sonoma on Friday SOURCE: Brock Beard, LASTCAR.info

The Leavine Family Racing team (LFR), which campaigns the #95 Ford in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, expects to move back to their Concord, NC shop after the Kentucky race on July 11, according to driver Michael McDowell.

McDowell, interviewed at the Sonoma Raceway on Sunday prior to the Toyota / Save Mart 350, commented on the fire that damaged much of the LFR shop on May 8.  Since then, the single-car operation has worked out of Team Penske’s shop:

“We are still working out of Team Penske right now,” said McDowell.  “We probably will for at least the next two or three weeks.  But we’re getting closer to being able to move back into our shop.  It won’t be like how it was.  We lost a good portion of the shop that’s gonna take months and months to rebuild, but we have enough space up front to operate out of our shop again.  Our plan is to move back in after Kentucky. . .”

“. . .It’s been a mess and Wally Rogers and all the guys have been working hard on that, too.  And I’d say that’s where it’s affected us the most it’s just been a distraction.  It’s taking a lot of our key people out of working on race cars and trying to get us back into a shop.”

The fire, whose cause has still not been reported, damaged much of the shop including the car McDowell raced at Sonoma in 2014.  McDowell finished 34th on Sunday.