MOORESVILLE, N.C. – Gaunt Brothers Racing will keep Ty Dillon in its No. 96 Toyota Camry for the NASCAR Cup Series’ second race of the season on the Daytona Int’l Speedway road course on Feb. 21.
Dillon is already slated to compete for Gaunt Brothers Racing in an attempt to qualify for the 63rd Daytona 500 on Feb. 14. The 28-year-old from Lewisville, N.C., will attempt to make his 163rd career NASCAR Cup Series start upon qualifying the No. 96 Bass Pro Shops/Black Rifle Coffee Company Toyota Camry for The Great American Race.
The Daytona road-course race will be Dillon’s 11th career NASCAR Cup Series start on a road course.
“I really enjoy the challenge of road-course racing and I’m glad that I’ll be competing at the Daytona road course for Gaunt Brothers Racing,” Dillon said. “Ever since we announced that I’d be driving for them in the Daytona 500, I’ve been immersed with the team and Toyota. To be able to extend this relationship another week allows us to continue to feed off one another and apply all that we’re learning into on-track performance.”
Gaunt Brothers Racing plans to enter each road-course race this season, and the 14-turn, 3.61-mile layout at Daytona marks the first of seven road-course races on the schedule.
“It’s important for us to get a good start to the season and one of the ways we aim to achieve that is with consistency. Having Ty with us for back-to-back races gives us the opportunity to build on our learnings from one week to the next and apply them at the road course,” said Marty Gaunt, president, Gaunt Brothers Racing. “It’s obviously different disciplines going from a superspeedway to a road course, but the communication is the same. Ty brings youthful experience to our team and we want to maximize our time with him.”