NASCAR Whelen Southern Modified standout and New Hampshire native Andy Seuss made his Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series debut at his home track of New Hampshire Motor Speedway in Sunday’s Foxwoods Resort Casino 301, finishing 10 laps down in 28th after starting 35th, driving the No. 51 Jacob Companies Ford for Rick Ware Racing.
Seuss posted a respectable performance, giving the RWR organization their best finish in four Loudon starts.
“It was absolutely incredible,” Seuss said. “I didn’t want to get ahead of myself going into it, but we met all our goals. I kept the car in one piece and finished ahead of the team’s average finish. The (Rick Ware Racing) team hadn’t finished a race here before, so that was cool.”
Despite being 10 miles-per-hour slower than the leaders, Seuss made sure to stay out of the way of the leaders, keeping his car in one piece and making sure to take care of the equipment of the car.
Seuss made it clear that he wanted to share this moment with his family and friends, thanking everyone involved and making sure to enjoy it, noting that drivers don’t have too many days to do so after their Cup debut. But at the same time, Seuss hopes that his performance Sunday was enough to get the attention of other prospective teams even though he doesn’t know if he’ll get any future opportunities in the Cup garage.
“I’m treating this as my debut and my retirement because you never know if there’s another one,” he said. “A long time ago, somebody said that out of all the people in the world, only 40 get to do this on the weekend. It’s pretty cool to be one of those 40.”
Seuss also noted the experience as a learning curve, saying that he thought he was twice the driver for a Cup car at the end of the race than he was at the beginning of the race. He believes that played a role in his final result.
Seuss’s RWR teammate Austin Theriault also made his Cup debut Sunday, where the Maine native finished 35th when his day ended early.