Cole Whitt drives for Joe Falk this weekend |
Whitt, a 21-year-old development driver for JR Motorsports in the NASCAR Nationwide Series, will pilot the No. 33 LittleJoesAutos.com Chevrolet in Sunday’s GEICO 400. He enters the weekend event with five NASCAR Sprint Cup Series starts to his credit, in addition to 28 NASCAR Nationwide Series and 26 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series starts.
“The sport of NASCAR is constantly evolving, and as we look to make strides within our own organization we felt that we needed to add a driver to our lineup that has ties to a factory-backed organization,” said tram owner Joe Fal. “Cole Whitt is a young driver with a lot of potential – demonstrated by the fact he was hand-picked by Dale Earnhardt Jr. – and we feel that his input will help us improve our intermediate program in the short-term. It has always been our goal to grow Circle Sport into a competitive organization no matter the race track and the addition of Cole Whitt will help us reach that goal.”
Whitt has scored three top-five and 10 top-10 finishes in 25 Nationwide Series races this season behind the wheel of the No. 88 Chevrolet with career-best finishes of fourth at Daytona International Speedway, Talladega Superspeedway and Michigan International Speedway. Whitt is currently seventh in the driver point standings – and second in the Rookie of the Year standings behind Austin Dillon – with eight races remaining in the 2012 Nationwide Series season
Tony Glover, the three-time Daytona 500 championship crew chief credited with 14 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series victories, will continue to lead the No. 33 Circle Sport team. Stephen Leicht, who is leading the 2012 Sprint Cup Series Rookie-of-the-Year standings, will return to the seat of the No. 33 Circle Sport Chevrolet next week at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. Complete details of the sponsor-driver lineup for the remainder of the season will be announced at a later date.