Longtime NASCAR Xfinity Series Team Files for Bankruptcy

• The Gaffney, S.C.-based team owned by Johnny Davis has been a mainstay in NASCAR’s Xfinity Series for more than two decades.

• JDM’s bankruptcy filing became known a few days before the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

• During the reorganization, Davis will continue building race cars.

Fans often forget that professional sports are big business and race teams are individual companies until reality hits when a long-time operation such as JD Motorsports files for bankruptcy.

The Gaffney, S.C.-based operation owned by Johnny Davis has been a mainstay in NASCAR’s Xfinity Series for more than two decades and it played an important role in Ross Chastain’s racing career. Davis gave Chastain a chance at a full-time Xfinity Series ride in 2015 and the Florida native remained fulltime with the operation through 2018 when he acquired his first Xfinity victory at Las Vegas. In 2019, Chastain split his time between JDM and Kaulig Racing.

This year, the team fielded a Chevrolet for 22-year-old driver Dawson Cram at several Xfinity races. Patrick Gallagher, Garrett Smithley, Ty Dillon and Thomas Annunziata also made starts for the team this season.

“It’s sad,” Chastain said about Davis’ bankruptcy filing. “Johnny’s a guy I thought would always be around. From racing against his cars to racing for him for better part of four years, we had a lot of great times together and a lot of great memories. We did a lot for each other.

“A lot of those races he kept me in the car when we were supposed to start-and-park and didn’t have sponsorship that kept my career going along.”

JDM’s bankruptcy filing became known a few days before the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The organization skipped the Pennzoil 250 Xfinity Series race at Indianapolis. Since then, JDM has released a statement saying the facility remained “functional” as Davis worked toward “reorganizing the team’s finances and direction.”

He cited lagging purses and rising expenses as making it increasingly difficult to compete in the Xfinity Series, especially for teams that sometimes struggle to keep up with the sport’s operations that have more financial support.

“What we are able to gather in sponsorship and the small winnings from purses can’t keep us doing what and how we want to do,” Davis said in a prepared statement. “It’s simply a matter of math.”

During the reorganization, Davis will continue building race cars, focus on what’s occurring in the sport and how his reorganized team can fit in, in NASCAR.

“Some of the biggest companies in the country have reorganized through bankruptcy,” Davis noted.