Brad Daugherty, co-owner of JTG Daugherty Racing, said in an NBC talent media availability on Tuesday that his team will not pursue another charter in 2022 and will return to a one-car operation in the NASCAR Cup Series.
“We’re not going to pursue another,” Daugherty said. “I had a good buddy that told me about 10 years ago that if you have one bad race team, why have two? It just makes it more difficult, and that [person] was Dale Jarrett.
“We got into this second race car because we’ve been very fortunate with our sponsorship model. We’ve been able to have an excess of sponsorship dollars that we had to put somewhere, and we were asked to put it into a second race team.
“We really want to be a strong, one-car race company, and that’s what we are going to go back to next season. We can’t wait. We really think we’re going to surprise people with our performance”.
While JTG Daugherty is downsizing to one car in 2021, it isn’t clear who will drive it. Both Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Ryan Preece have uncertainty for next season; however, Stenhouse Jr. seems the more likely candidate to stay with JTG Daugherty. The team signed the two-time Cup Series winner to a “multi-year deal” prior to the 2020 season, but it isn’t clear when the contract expires.
Stenhouse Jr. is driving a chartered car for JTG Daugherty, while Ryan Preece is not. Preece lacked sponsorship to secure a 2021 charter but has found enough results and funding to race the entire 2021 schedule.
Both drivers have recorded one top-5 in 2021 and have missed the Cup Series playoffs.