In just three short years, Big Machine Racing has made quite the name for themselves in the NASCAR Xfinity Series.
Scott Borchetta is a record executive as well as President and CEO of Big Machine Records and Big Machine Distilleries, both based in Nashville, Tennessee. In 2021, he stepped into NASCAR with Big Machine Racing, immediately running a full season.
The Drivers
BMR’s first season was pieced together by two drivers. Danny Bohn kicked off the season at Daytona and Jade Buford ran the remaining 32 races.
Next, 10 drivers collaborated to run the 2022 season. Buford logged nine races and Nick Sanchez ran six. Tyler Reddick and Kaz Grala both ran five races, while NASCAR Cup Series regulars, Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. and Ross Chastain both ran two. Finally, Marco Andretti, Parker Kligerman, and the Dillon brothers, Austin and Ty, each got a single race.
However, 2023 was the turning point for BMR when Kligerman signed for the full season.
As a bonus, Jude Buford ran a second BMR car, the No. 38, for the races Talladega Superspeedway and Daytona International Speedway.
The Stats
Leading up to the pivotal 2023 season, the No. 48 Spiked Light Coolers Chevrolet Camaro clocked nine top-10 finishes, four of which were top five finishes. Additionally, Reddick snagged a win for the team in 2022 at Texas Motor Speedway.
With a consistent driver in Klingerman behind the wheel in 2023, the team saw 18 top 10 finishes, with eight of those being top fives.
In 2023, Kligerman also bested his average starting position (15.1) by having an average finishing position of 13.2. He scored the first pole for the team at Dover Motor Speedway, and nearly puled off wins at Road America and Texas.
The Sponsors
While Spiked Light Coolers has been the primary sponsor over the years, other companies have jumped on board between the two BMR cars.
Bohn featured North American Motor Cars for his 2021 Daytona start. Meanwhile, Buford finished out that season with Big Machine Spiked Coolers as the primary.
The pieced-together season of 2022 featured Big Machine Racing Spiked (Andretti) and Big Machine Spiked Coolers (Buford, Chastain, T. Dillon, Grala, Kligerman, Reddick, Sanchez, and Stenhouse).
Additionally, Ruedebusch.com rounded out Grala’s time in the No. 48 seat in 2022 while Critical Components sponsored A. Dillon’s Charlotte Motor Speedway start and JAG Metals sat aboard the machine for Reddick’s win.
In 2023, Kligerman had variations of the Big Machine Distillery beverages on his ride.
For the first 14 races, it was, once again, Big Machine Racing Spiked. Eighteen races featured Spiked Light Coolers, while Spiked Light Coolers Orange showed up for the summer race at Daytona.
Buford’s two starts in the BMR No. 38 were sponsored by Double Spiked Light.
Looking Ahead
As BMR enters their fourth season, Kligerman returns full-time to the No. 48. Ahead of Daytona, Kligerman noted, “I can’t wait to get this season going. I know that gets said a lot, but considering how good we were in the second half of the year, I just feel excited to get a whole season to be at that level.
Continuing, he said, “There were so many places that we were so much better in the last part of 2023, in the off season I can feel where we improved and we were able to refine more.”
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