BACE Motorsports

Owner	Bill Baumgardner
Base	Charlotte, North Carolina
Series	Winston Cup,Busch Series
Race drivers	Johnny Benson,Randy LaJoie,Chad Little,Tony Raines,Tim Fedewa
Manufacturer	Chevrolet
Opened	1993
Closed	2005
Career
Drivers' Championships	3 (Busch Series)
Race victories	16

BACE Motorsports was a championship-winningNASCAR team. It was owned by entrepreneur Bill Baumgardner, who also founded Staff America. Baumgardner was inspired to start his own team after Staff America was a sponsor in the Busch Series for two years. The team was famous during its tenure for always running its familiar No. 74.

BACE made its debut in 1993 at the season opening race atDaytona International Speedway.Jack Sprague was the driver, and he finished 44th after the engine expired. After that less-than-stellar debut, Sprague and BACE made a good turn around, and they soon became a consistent top-20 contender, and had three top-10 finishes. After the fall race atDover International Speedway, BACE and Sprague parted ways, and Winston Cup starErnie Irvan occupied the car for one race, but another driver took the reins as well, a young short-track driver namedJohnny Benson.

With Steve "Birdie" Bird as the crew chief, Benson's rookie year with BACE started off slow, as he originally didn't finish higher than 16th. After a long string of finishes 22nd or worse, Benson put together two consecutive top-5 finishes atThe Milwaukee Mile andSouth Boston Speedway, then had three more top-ten finishes before winning his first race at Dover. At the end of 1994, Benson was named theBusch Series Rookie of the Year and was sixth in points. Benson's momentum carried over into the following year. Along withLipton Tea coming on board as sponsor, Benson won twice early in the season, and finished outside of the top-ten only nine times. The consistency was enough for him to clinch that year's championship. When Benson signed on withBahari Racing for 1996, veteranRandy LaJoie was tabbed his replacement along with a new sponsor inFina. LaJoie had no problem adjusting, and he won five times as well as a second straight championship for BACE; then he repeated the performance in 1997. 1997 also saw the appearance of a second BACE car, the No. 33Kleenex team driven byTim Fedewa. In two seasons, Fedewa won twice and finished 7th in points in 1998. After a seemingly disappointing 1998 season that saw just one victory and a fourth-place finish in points, LaJoie left forPhoenix Racing while Fedewa signed withCicci-Welliver Racing, and sponsor Kleenex departed forProgressive Motorsports.

BACE had an entirely different look in1999.Alka-Seltzer andBayer sponsored the 33 car driven byJason Jarrett, while the rookieTony Raines drove the unsponsored No. 74.^[1][2] The results were mixed. Raines showed consistency and came out of left field to win Rookie of the Year,^[2] while Jarrett was released after the race atCalifornia Speedway,^[3] and was replaced by a series of rotating drivers includingMike Wallace,Hermie Sadler, and Benson returning to the team briefly. For 2000, Raines slid over to the No. 33, while rookieP. J. Jones signed to drive the 74 car.^[4] Raines finished second at South Boston, and finished 15th in points, while the 74 team disappeared briefly due to operating expenses,^[5] beforeChad Little became the driver towards the end of the year. Raines (No. 33) and Little (No. 74) returned in 2001, and both drivers finished in the top ten in points (Raines-6th, Little-9th). Raines finished 12th in point for the 2002 season in the No. 33. Little started the season out in the unsponsored No. 74 but after the first couple of races that season, BACE decided to make the move to Winston Cup running a part-time schedule in the No. 74 Monte Carlo. After missing several races, Little left the team. Raines drove the rest of the part-time schedule in 2002 and made the move to full-time Winston Cup in2003. Raines got a sixth-place finish atNorth Carolina Speedway, but was left in the dust for the Rookie of the Year running. BACE returned to the Busch Series for2004, but this time, Raines was not their original driver until later in the year, when he replacedDamon Lusk. BACE was forced to cut back to a part-time schedule because of their decreasing finances, and putJimmy Spencer in the car with a few races to go in the season. In2005, BACE announced they would temporarily suspend operations but return as soon as sponsorship was found. Its equipment was sold toKevin Harvick Incorporated, and the team has not been heard from since.

• Official website^{[permanent dead link]}
• BACE Motorsports owner statistics at Racing-Reference

• Auto racing teams established in 1993
• Auto racing teams disestablished in 2005
• Sports clubs and teams in Charlotte, North Carolina
• Defunct NASCAR teams
• American auto racing teams
• Defunct companies based in North Carolina
• 1993 establishments in North Carolina
• 2005 disestablishments in North Carolina

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