After running the last several seasons fulltime, Go Fas Racing has decided to scale back to a part-time effort for the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series season, CATCHFENCE.com has confirmed.
The team owned by entrepreneur Archie St. Hilaire and managed by son Mason will relinquish their portion of a charter that they currently share with Joe Falk to a new partner at the end of the season.
“It has been a lot of fun over the years but with the evolution of life, your priorities change,” Archie St. Hilaire said. “It definitely has been great working with Ford and all of our great marketing partners over the last 10 years and we look forward to continuing with them on a smaller scale going forward.”
CATCHFENCE.com has learned that the potential new partner is rumored to be a relationship between former NASCAR Cup Series driver Matt Tifft and current Xfinity owner and driver BJ McLeod. An official announcement is expected as early as Friday.
St. Hilaire says they will continue a relationship with Wood Brothers Racing on another Cup charter (No. 21) moving forward into the 2021 season and will announce a driver lineup once the remaining full-time teams announce their 2021 drivers.
“Joe Falk of Circle Sport will continue to own half of the charter we currently run and we will be transferring our ownership in our half of the charter at the end of the season to Joe’s new partner who will be announced in the coming days,” added St. Hilaire. “We will continue our partnership with the Wood Brothers Racing team on our other charter moving forward into the future. We look forward to the 2021 season.
“I can’t say enough about how NASCAR has built and maintained their business model during the current pandemic and how exciting the schedule looks for 2021,” added Hilaire. “We will keep four to five cars and anticipate running five to six races in 2021 at tracks we enjoy and make financial sense.”
Jon Wood, senior vice president of Wood Brothers Racing provided CATCHFENCE.com the following statement:
“We have nothing but good things to say about Archie and Mason, first as competitors and secondly as business partners. We wish both of them endless success in their next chapters. As Archie stated, we expect to continue enjoying the relationship in our joint effort with the 21 charter.
“Sometimes we get too entangled in who owns what and the important message here is not about the 21, but about bidding farewell to two great people from their current roles in NASCAR competition.”
Late this summer, current driver Corey LaJoie and the team agreed to part ways at the end of the season and while the team did have prospects for a full-time replacement driver in 2021, a deep discussion between the father-son combo shifted the team’s intentions for next season.
Mason St. Hilaire will pursue business opportunities outside of racing with his father alongside.
“With my son [and GM of Go Fas] Mason moving on to start his own business in a different industry and myself getting ready to spend time with my daughter having my first grandchild, I feel it’s time to reevaluate the next chapter of my life,” said St. Hilaire.
Go Fas Racing made its official debut in the Cup Series back in 2012 after purchasing the team from Frank Stoddard with Kelly Bires and hosted a number of drivers throughout the years until in 2016, Jeffrey Earnhardt drove a majority of the season.
In 2017 and a charter in place, Go Fas Racing hired Matt DiBenedetto as its driver of the No. 32 Ford and kept him for two seasons until he departed for Leavine Family Racing in 2019 and was replaced by LaJoie.
Entering Sunday’s AutoTrader EchoPark Automotive 500 at Texas Motor Speedway, Go Fas and Hilaire have been credited with 239 Cup Series starts and six top-10 finishes.
LaJoie earned the team a career-best sixth at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway in the summer event last season. Collectively, both DiBenedetto and LaJoie has finished inside the top-10 three times each, respectively.
Before moving to the NASCAR Cup Series, Go Fas Racing also competed in the NASCAR Xfinity Series under the Go Green Racing banner.
The organization competed in 148 races from 2008 to 2018, including a full season in 2018 with Joey Gase but failed to earn a top-10 finish.
A call to B.J. Mcleod was not immediately returned.
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
