Official Release

Richard Petty Motorsports has announced a driver development partnership with Empire Racing Group for the 2016 season. Empire Racing Group will field a truck in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series with the iconic, stylized No. 43. The truck will run the colors of Petty's Garage as the primary sponsor in the NextEra Energy Resources 250 under the Friday night lights in Daytona. Austin Hill will be the first driver to pilot the No. 43 truck and a roster of various drivers will fill out the remainder of the schedule.

A year has passed since Ryan Reed’s emotional win at Daytona International Speedway (DIS), but the 22-year-old Roush Fenway Racing driver is not satisfied with just one trophy from the famed 2.5-mile superspeedway.

Austin Wayne Self heads for the high banks of world-famous Daytona International Speedway and his NASCAR Camping World Truck Series debut in the NextEra Energy Resources 250 on Friday with focus and determination that belies his rookie status.

myHealthyUS and strategic partner Benezon announce sponsorship support for fellow Florida Sheriffs Youth Ranch corporate partner and NASCAR Xfinity Series race team, JD Motorsports with Gary Keller.

G&K Services, Inc. (NASDAQ: GK) announced Wednesday the sponsorship of JD Motorsports with Gary Keller’s new driver Ryan Preece and the No. 01 Chevrolet for the 2016 NASCAR Xfinity series.

"I definitely plan on racing on Thursday. You can talk about being locked in or protecting your car, things like that, but I always look at Thursday as an opportunity to show people that I’m here to race and show the other drivers that when it comes time to race with me on Sunday that I’m someone they can be around.”

I think there was a few areas we felt like we needed to be better in – a few areas where we felt like we could be stronger and a lot of that stuff is on the technical side and the car side and certainly being a Toyota team and our relationship with JGR (Joe Gibbs Racing), we feel like – Cole (Pearn, crew chief) feels like we’re stronger in every area than we were last year and that’s something in the off-season that we were looking forward to.

“It was not quite the way we would have wanted to start a season here last time around 365 days ago, but things obviously turned the corner well. Was able to get through rehab and get back in the race car and then go through the season, win some races – three in a row at one point – my first Brickyard 400 and now to be Sprint Cup Series champion at the end of the season was pretty spectacular as well.

“I’m looking forward to just being in the truck every week. Last year, it was really hard because being in and out for 10 races and watching everybody progress and get better and better – that was really hard for me. I did get advice off the track a lot from Dale Earnhardt Jr., Kevin Harvick – all my teammates.

“Well drivers are all naturally very self-motivated and sometimes what is in the best interest of a driver is not what is in the best interest of the sport and that becomes a very delicate line to walk. Having the formats that are now available thanks to NASCAR have I think shed some of that.