Rain concerns prompt withdrawals for Talladega

With rain in the forecast at Talladega Superspeedway as NASCAR approaches, teams that would need to make the Xfinity and Camping World Truck Series races on time have decided not to waste their time showing up only to not even get a chance to qualify. As rain will likely result in qualifying being cancelled, three Xfinity teams that are not guaranteed spots in the race have withdrawn their entries, as has one Truck team so far.

On the Xfinity side, the #24 of Sam Hunt Racing, the #53 of Emerling-Gase Motorsports, and the #77 of Bassett Racing have backed out. The three cars are forty-seventh, forty-sixth, and forty-fifth in the owner points, respectively, as part-time entries that have run less than five races in 2022.

The #24, which was set to be driven by Joe Nemechek, had also missed the Daytona August race due to qualifying getting rained out. The car is SHR’s second car and had only attempted the season opener with Jeffrey Earnhardt, who finished fifteenth.

Like the #24, the #53 is EGM’s part-time second vehicle and has only attempted the superspeedway races. Joey Gase finished twenty-sixth at Daytona while Shane Lee was fourteenth at the first Talladega race in April.

Bassett Racing’s #77 was due to be piloted by Ronnie Bassett Jr. as usual. Since the team’s debut in 2021, rainouts had been their kryptonite as they were locked out of their first ten entries—when all but the 2021 Beef 300 did not have qualifying due to COVID-19, and that race’s session had been rained out. The team also failed to qualify for their first five attempts in 2022 before making four of their next five tries with Ronnie and brother Dillon Bassett.

The team posted on Twitter, “The 77 Bassett Racing team has also withdrawn due to weather!”

With the three withdrawals, the Xfinity entry list decreases from forty-one cars to the maximum thirty-eight. This allows teams that were otherwise on the bubble like Mike Harmon Racing‘s #47 to take part with their eponymous owner.

In the Trucks, only the #04 of Cory Roper has withdrawn as of this article’s publishing. Roper would have been making his first start of 2022 after stringing a pair of top tens in the two superspeedway races last year.

Five trucks will still miss the race with forty-one entries.