Brad Daugherty NASCAR team invests $2 million

For years NASCAR team owner Brad Daugherty has accepted that his budget — and therefore his team’s results — were not going to be among the Sprint Cup’s Top 10.

Unable to compete financially with big boys like Hendrick Motorsports and Joe Gibbs Racing, JTG Daugherty Racing has learned to deal with finishing closer to the middle of the pack or the back of the field as opposed to running up front.

No more.

An alliance with Richard Childress Racing and added investment of millions of dollars has left the former basketball player and Black Mountain native confident that bigger and better things are in store for the 47 Busch Beans Chevrolet SS driven by AJ Allmendinger.

“I’m excited as I can be," said Daugherty, 48, who played for Owen High, North Carolina and the Cleveland Cavaliers before going racing in NASCAR.

“I said earlier that I feel like we are a top 20 race team. A lot of people thought I was crazy because we haven’t had the results the past few years to back that up, but I really believe we are headed in the right direction.

o “We made a a lot of changes in the off-season, brought in some key personnel and spent a lot of money (about $2 million).

“The last couple of years we just felt out-resourced when we got to the track. We didn’t have the power to compete."

The influx of capital and help from an old friend has really helped the morale of the team.

“We made a significant contribution to the company and formed an alliance with Richard Childress, who has been a friend for a long time," Daugherty said.

“Our raw speed and velocity are 100 percent better, and with the new alliance we are able to instantly analyze data, get feedback from one database that all the RCR teams link into.

“Racing has changed so much. We have six engineers sitting here right now trying to make our race car go faster." Citizen Times