MOORESVILLE, N.C. — Marty Gaunt didn’t hesitate when asked what his feelings were surrounding Tuesday night’s announcement that Gaunt Brothers Racing will race full time in the NASCAR Cup Series this year with Mexican driver Daniel Suarez.
“Let’s go with ‘holy crap,’” the Canadian team owner said seriously before dissolving into a spate of chuckles.
But below the surface, even as Gaunt’s people are working “literally 24/7” to prepare for Daytona Speedweeks and the remainder of the season, there is a sense of something greater in store.
This deal with Suarez — who will pilot the No. 96 Toyota Camry in all 36 races as the Gaunt-owned team runs a full season for the first time — isn’t about a single year of competition.
It’s about a long-term goal, structured around making the team a mainstay in the Cup Series garage.
“I want to put this out there: we wouldn’t have even thought about (going full time) if we didn’t have Toyota and TRD on board,” Gaunt said during a Tuesday night media teleconference. “They are a big key on why we believe the future is something we can build on. We’re probably going to stumble a little bit and have some speed bumps, but this isn’t a short-term deal to see what we can do this year.
“This is about building something well into the future.”
Gaunt Brothers Racing competed in 15 Cup Series events last year, running a partial schedule primarily with Parker Kligerman, but also putting TRD simulator driver Drew Herring in the car at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
The team’s best finish was 15th, earned by Kligerman in the season-opening Daytona 500 and duplicated at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway in October.
Gaunt recognizes there’s a big difference between running 15 races and the full schedule, hence why his team — led by new crew chief Dave Winston — is thrashing to make sure the No. 96 squad is in the best position it can be when it arrives in Daytona Beach, Fla., in a matter of days to kick off the year.
“This deal has come together, we’ll call it late in the stages, if you will,” noted Gaunt. “We have an inventory of cars that we’ve been racing the last year or so that we’re getting ready to go in the shop. Literally, the guys are working day and night to make that happen. But where Toyota and TRD have partnered with us, we’re leaning on them a lot for technical support and guidance to get through a full season in Cup here. We know that’s going to be vital for us to succeed.
“With all of that said, we recognize that this is a great opportunity for us,” Gaunt added. “We’ve been racing on and off for the last 10 years, all the way back to Canada with the Pinty’s Series and also in the K&N Series (now ARCA Menards Series East and West) … and we’re pretty excited. We started Cup racing three years ago on a part-time basis and we did everything on quantity over quality.
“To get to this point with our partners at Toyota and TRD and all the folks at Gaunt Brothers Racing shows a lot of what we’re striving for. This is an exciting time for us.”
With the sudden expansion of his operation, Gaunt admitted he hasn’t been able to take in the realization of his goal of fielding a full-time Cup Series team just yet, simply because his list of things to do hasn’t stopped growing since the moment Suarez was signed as his driver.
“There have been many sleepless nights already, and I’m sure there’s going to be some more,” Gaunt said. “Literally, I walked in the shop the other morning and one of the folks in our shop asked me why I was sending out emails at 3:22 a.m. It literally is like drinking from a fire hydrant right now. … We’ve been tackling so many different items.
“I’ve started a team in the past. I started a truck team, I started a Cup team back in the Red Bull (Racing) days, but none of that was like this. The last time we did it, with Red Bull, we had pretty much a whole year to get ready and here we’re talking a matter of weeks and we’ll be going to Daytona,” Gaunt continued. “The trucks leave next week, we’ve been dealing with so many different aspects and we’ve hired so many folks in the last week.
“We don’t really have time right now to stand back and say, ‘OK, this is what we’re doing,’ because it’s literally all hands-on deck. How do we get to Daytona? How do we get past Daytona? How do we do the West Coast Swing? Those conversations are happening all day long. But it will sink in eventually.”
When it does, the team’s larger vision will morph from race-to-race to that longer-term, futuristic gaze, aimed at not only competitive gains but building a strong foundation around Suarez to — hopefully — propel him toward the front of the Cup Series grid.
Suarez was the final key in the building process, according to Gaunt. His availability made making the leap of faith right now — as opposed to waiting until the debut of the Next Gen car in 2021 — a no-brainer.
“Daniel and I talked about this — why don’t we just wait until 2021 when our stuff isn’t obsolete?” Gaunt said. “The honest answer is that Daniel Suárez was available right now, and this sport is all about people.
“Equipment is going to change come 2021. We know that. We’re all about getting the right people in the right places right now. It was a huge opportunity that we couldn’t turn down and now we hope to build for the future.”