Virginia native Sam Hunt is in his sixth year of ownership in NASCAR, helming the Sam Hunt Racing team that fields the Nos. 24 and 26 Toyotas in the NASCAR Xfinity Series.
The team had Kaz Grala behind the wheel full time and a rotation of drivers the second car in 2023 but has since scaled back slightly. Both cars are still in operation, with the No. 26 the week-in, week-out car while the No. 24 makes occasional appearances. But the former has a rotation of drivers that includes Corey Heim, Jeffrey Earnhardt and Sage Karam.
Though the team has yet to score a victory, it has a number of top-five finishes to its name and has knocked on the door of winning several times.
Frontstretch caught up with Hunt at Richmond Raceway on March 30 to discuss the team’s evolution.
Adam Cheek, Frontstretch: Is it good to be back in Richmond at your home track?
Sam Hunt: Yeah, absolutely. Always fun to be near family, friends and the hometown score.
Cheek: So how did you guys settle on No. 26?
Hunt: Originally, when I started and went from the former K&N Series (now ARCA Menards Series East) to Xfinity, the number options were really limited, so it was either a number over 50 or the one number that was available under 50 was 26. I felt like that was just a good number for what was available, so it was really luck of the draw.
Cheek: Start of the season, it feels like you guys haven’t gotten the finishes you deserve. What are you adjusting?
Hunt: Yeah, I think we’ve brought good racecars every week so far. We’ve been in position for really good finishes, and I think now it just comes down to closing these days out and not making those small mistakes that might cost us a finish. But everybody at Sam Hunt Racing, Toyota, TRD, … there’s so much effort going into this smaller program right now. And it’s cool to finally see it blossoming and to see us running so far up front.
Cheek: You guys scaled back a little bit this year. What went into that decision?
Hunt: Yeah, a lot goes into that. It’s obviously a business and things kind of ebb and flow. And for us, Kaz decided to go Cup racing, and we had some things change very late in the game.
So we just felt like our team [could] primarily focus on running one car full time, work on the details of the car work on getting these cars built further ahead of time. And increasing our performance was the right…
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