Founded in 2011, GMS ran ARCA, Truck and Xfinity cars, won two Truck championships and ran a driver development pipeline before ending operations at the close of 2023.
GMS Racing was a NASCAR team owned by Maurice Gallagher, whose Allegiant Travel company sponsored it at times. It competed in ARCA from 2011, won Truck championships with Johnny Sauter and Sheldon Creed, and closed at the end of the 2023 season.
GMS Racing was an American stock car team that raced in the Truck, ARCA Menards and Xfinity series. Maurice Gallagher founded it as Gallagher Motorsports in 2011, and it ended operations at the close of 2023. Along the way its Truck program won two championships.
How did GMS Racing start and grow?
The team began as Gallagher Motorsports, entering ARCA competition in 2011. It added a Truck entry in 2013 and an Xfinity operation in 2016, and it started out in a former BAM Racing shop in Charlotte before relocating. The name changed to GMS Racing along the way, and the team kept Gallagher as its owner throughout.
Gallagher's earlier link to stock car racing ran through a Las Vegas team run by his friend Spencer Clark. That team raced in the Busch East and Busch series until Clark died unexpectedly in 2006.
The technical base changed in 2014, when GMS bought the assets of Richard Childress Racing's Truck operation and set up a technical partnership with the Childress organisation. A year later Mike Beam became competition director, and the team moved to Statesville, North Carolina, into a building that had stood empty since 2010 and had earlier housed Evernham Motorsports and later Richard Petty Motorsports.
Small identity touches followed. The team borrowed a number font that Braun Racing had once used, and in 2017 it entered an alliance with Halmar Friesen Racing.
A team that started in ARCA, became a Truck title winner and closed when its owner's focus moved to a Cup operation.
Who owned GMS Racing and what happened to Richard Petty's team?
Maurice J. Gallagher Jr. owned GMS. He is chairman and chief executive of Allegiant Travel Company, and the airline brand Allegiant Air sponsored the team on and off. On 1 December 2021 he bought a majority interest in Richard Petty Motorsports for $19 million, and the business was renamed Petty GMS Motorsports.
The purchase included both of that organisation's charters. One stayed with the No. 43, while the second, which Rick Ware Racing had leased for its No. 51 entry from 2019 to 2021, went to a new No. 42 car. GMS itself kept running separately, and Richard Petty did not invest in its Truck or ARCA teams.
The next change came in 2023, when Petty GMS became Legacy Motor Club after seven-time Cup champion Jimmie Johnson took a stake. Gallagher then turned his attention toward that Cup operation.
What was the Drivers Edge Development program?
Drivers Edge Development was a development scheme that GMS ran with JR Motorsports starting in early 2019. Its drivers were placed in GMS's K&N, ARCA and Truck teams, and in JR Motorsports' Late Model and Xfinity cars. The first class was announced on 24 January 2019.
The first intake featured Adam Lemke, Sam Mayer, Sheldon Creed, Zane Smith, John Hunter Nemechek and Noah Gragson, and Carson Hocevar was added later that year. The last class, in 2023, comprised the Truck drivers Rajah Caruth and Daniel Dye, plus Carson Kvapil, who was driving for JR Motorsports' Late Model team.
The program gave the team a steady flow of young drivers across its three series, and it gave JR Motorsports' Late Model and Xfinity teams access to the same pipeline. Drivers could move between K&N, ARCA and Truck cars as their careers developed, and the scheme ended in 2023 with the closure of the team.
How did GMS Racing do in the Xfinity Series?
GMS ran Xfinity cars from 2016 to 2019, using Chevrolet Camaros. The team's best finish came in 2019, when John Hunter Nemechek ended seventh in the standings. In November 2019 the team dropped the program to concentrate on its Truck and ARCA teams.
Spencer Gallagher started the 2016 season at Phoenix in a part-time No. 21 car and finished 23rd on debut. That part-time plan had called for 13 races, and he ended up running seven of them. His best run that year was eighth at Daytona in July. For the end of 2016 he took a full-time No. 23, after Richard Childress Racing's Daniel Hemric had taken the No. 21 seat.
The 2017 season was rough, with one top-10 for Gallagher, at Richmond, and eight DNFs. That Richmond top-10 was his only one that year. The breakthrough came in spring 2018 at Talladega, where he won the first Xfinity race in the organisation's history. Four days later NASCAR suspended him indefinitely under its substance abuse policy.
Chase Elliott, Alex Bowman, Justin Haley and A. J. Allmendinger all drove the No. 23 during the gap, and Bill Elliott came out of retirement to race at Road America.
Nemechek arrived from Chip Ganassi Racing for the 2019 season. He led only 14 laps but still reached the playoffs, finishing seventh with six top-five results and 19 top-10s. He then moved to Front Row Motorsports in the Cup Series, which left the No. 23 without a driver for 2020.
Justin Haley's 2018 Daytona result was taken away. He crossed the line first, but he had been found to be below the yellow line while passing, and NASCAR awarded the victory to Kyle Larson.
The No. 96 car showed the team's money problems. Ben Kennedy ran it in twelve races in 2017, and the team withdrew from several later events after Darlington for lack of sponsorship.
Which trucks won titles and races for GMS?
GMS's Truck teams won two championships: Johnny Sauter in 2016 and Sheldon Creed in 2020. Those titles came from two different trucks, the No. 21 and the No. 2. Several other drivers, including Brett Moffitt, Grant Enfinger and Zane Smith, added race wins in the No. 21, No. 2, No. 23 and No. 24 trucks.
Johnny Sauter drove the No. 21 full-time in 2016 and won in his debut with the team at Daytona. He took the fall races at Martinsville and Texas, then clinched his first title at Homestead by finishing third there. Sauter lost in the Championship 4 in both 2017 and 2018.
Sheldon Creed had the No. 2 truck from 2019, having run the final four races of 2018 in it. He finished 11th that season with four top-5s, then won five races in 2020 and the championship. A Darlington victory came in 2021, but he finished four points short of the final round, and the following year he moved to Richard Childress Racing's Xfinity No. 2 car.
The No. 2 had a rougher road before Creed. Cody Coughlin drove it in 2018 with JEGS sponsorship until sponsorship problems ended his ride on 24 September. Later that summer, after a ballast violation at Eldora, Jeff Stankiewicz, Austin Pollak and Jonathan Stewart were benched for three races.
Zane Smith drove the No. 21 in 2020 and 2021. As a rookie in 2020 he won twice and finished second in the points, and in 2021 he won at Martinsville and reached the Championship 4 again.
Brett Moffitt, the 2018 Truck champion, moved into the No. 24 for 2019 and won at Iowa after Ross Chastain was disqualified. He won again at Chicagoland that season. In 2020 he drove the No. 23 to the Championship 4, and he was leading at Phoenix when a caution dropped him to 10th.
Grant Enfinger ran the No. 23 full-time in 2022 and 2023. He collected three wins in 2023 at Kansas, Gateway and the Milwaukee Mile, then finished second in the final points standings.
Austin Dillon scored the team's first Truck victory at New Hampshire in 2015, and Kaz Grala won his first race at Daytona in 2017 in the No. 33 truck. Ben Kennedy's first career win came at Bristol in 2016 in that same truck.
| Series | Year | Driver and car | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Craftsman Truck Series | 2015 | Austin Dillon, No. 33 | First GMS Truck win, at New Hampshire |
| ARCA Menards Series | 2015 | Grant Enfinger, No. 23 | Series title with six wins |
| Xfinity Series | 2018 | Spencer Gallagher, No. 23 | First Xfinity win, at Talladega |
| Xfinity Series | 2019 | John Hunter Nemechek, No. 23 | Seventh in the final points standings |
| Craftsman Truck Series | 2016 | Johnny Sauter, No. 21 | Championship at Homestead |
| Craftsman Truck Series | 2020 | Sheldon Creed, No. 2 | Championship with five wins |
| ARCA East | 2019 and 2020 | Sam Mayer, No. 21 | Series titles, with five wins in 2020 |
What did the ARCA program achieve?
The ARCA program ran in two periods, 2011 to 2015 and 2019 to 2022. Spencer Gallagher, Grant Enfinger, Sam Mayer and Daniel Dye were among its drivers. Enfinger won six races and the series title in 2015, and Mayer won the East Series title in 2019 and again in 2020.
Gallagher's first ARCA win came at Kansas in 2014, in the final race of that season. Enfinger's title run began with a win in the season opener at Daytona. Dye's first win came at Berlin Raceway in 2021, in only his second start in the series. Mayer's No. 21 supplied the East Series titles, while Gallagher and Enfinger drove the No. 23 through much of the early ARCA work.
Mayer had run the full 2019 K&N Pro Series East season for the team and won that title. In 2020 he won five races in the East Series, and the program kept producing winners until the team left ARCA in 2022.
Why did GMS Racing close?
On 23 August 2023 the team said it would shut down, together with its affiliate GMS Fabrication, once that season's racing was over. Gallagher and Johnson then concentrated on Legacy Motor Club's Cup operation, which had grown out of the Petty GMS business.
By the time of the announcement the team had run only Truck and ARCA cars for several years, since the Xfinity program closed in November 2019. Sponsorship had been a constant strain. The No. 96 team had withdrawn from races in 2017 for want of backing, and the Xfinity program was closed in November 2019 to focus on the Truck and ARCA teams.
The old Fabrication site was bought by Rackley W.A.R. late in 2024, after the closure.
