Roush developmental driver Ty Majeski is racing in the Snowball Derby this weekend at Five Flags Speedway and he dropped some pretty big news when he spoke with Speed51.com.
According to Majeski, he has been told that Roush Fenway Racing will not have an Xfinity program next season. Majeski also stated that he will return to Super Late Model racing in 2019 where he has excelled at.
Xfinity program for next year
All signs do point to RFR shuttering their Xfinity program for next year. Ryan Reed announced he won’t return to the #16 car in 2019 after sponsor Lilly Diabetes decided to end their sponsorship with the team/driver. Roush’s second car the #60 rotated between three Ford development drivers in 2018. Unfortunately for the #60 team, they were involved in 27 incidents over the course of the 33 races this season.
RFR is only three seasons removed from winning an Xfinity Series championship. In 2015 the team was standing atop the stage in Homestead with Chris Buescher celebrating. Now, three seasons later it appears they will close the team down and that’s a massive loss for the support.
Regardless of how competitive RFR was, they were still a team that brought two cars to the race track. Now in 2019, that’s two less competitive cars and more bad news for the sport. Roush has fielded a car in the Xfinity series on a full time or part time basis every year since 1992. It appears like that streak is over.
In 2018
The team combined for two Top-5 finishes and fifteen Top-10 finishes with zero wins. The RFR Xfinity program hasn’t been to victory lane since Daytona in February of 2017 with Ryan Reed. Before that, it was the same Daytona race in 2015 with Ryan Reed. The performance wasn’t there and the results certainly were not there.
Since 2012 RFR was faded into obscurity. The once proud #1 Ford team has been relegated to the #3 Ford team with no end in sight for their struggles. Marred with drivers jumping ship, engineering struggles and questionable calls from the cat in the hat have all but sunk RFR.
We’re waiting for an official word but Majeski is one of their drivers, no reason to doubt his information.
