The 2023 season was a fruitful campaign for RFK Racing, but the team is not stopping their quest for the best. Not long after the team stepped into the offseason, RFK Racing declared a part-time third entry on their Cup Series program.
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The Ford team mapped out its plans for the “Stage 60” project during NASCAR Champion’s Week in Nashville. NASCAR veteran David Ragan will be driving the #60 Ford Mustang in the 2024 opener at the Daytona 500. Additional races that Ragan will take part in will be announced later. The last time Ragan competed full-time in the NASCAR Cup Series was back in 2019. Nevertheless, the 37-year-old, Unadilla native has been a familiar face in Ford’s testing and development program.
For a team like RFK Racing, Stage 60 is definitely a step towards expanding their boundaries. In the long run, Ragan’s reputation at the superspeedways could potentially boost RFK Racing’s winning chances at restricted plate tracks like the Daytona International Speedway.
The team’s co-owner Brad Keselowski told NASCAR, “…bringing in a good driver like David, and then the success that we’ve had with our cars at those tracks, we felt really confident that we could go there and be competitive.”
“The last few years, we’ve been in position to win the race with both of our cars, and for a number of reasons it didn’t come together, and we’d like to think that having a third car would give us some more strength that we’d be able to bring that home,” he added.
Stage 60 bears resemblance to similar projects by Trackhouse Racing and 23XI Racing
The NASCAR community has seen similar part-time entries such as in the Trackhouse Racing team through its Project 91 venture, with Australian V8 Supercar sensation Shane Van Gisbergen. The advent of a Kiwi star in the arena of NASCAR could significantly augment the sport’s popularity along with the team’s international reach in the years to come.
Speaking about the project the Trackhouse’s co-owner Justin Marks mentioned that by winning the Chicago Street race last year Project 91 kind of achieved its purpose of bringing in international talent into NASCAR. Adding, “It’s something that’s been exciting to the fans, and we are right now talking about what that might look like for next year.”
Similarly, the #67 entry for the 23XI Racing team had former Formula 1 and current WEC driver for Toyota Gazoo Racing, Kamui Kobayashi make his NASCAR Cup Series debut at Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the 2023 season. Interestingly, Kobayashi became the second Japanese driver to have raced in NASCAR’s top division and the fifth to take part in one of NASCAR’s three top-tier racing series.
