NNS: Scott Will Drive For JGR

Nationwide

NNS: Scott Will Drive For JGR

Joe Gibbs Racing signs Brian Scott for a full-time ride in the NASCAR Nationwide Series...

Bob Pockrass | http://www.scenedaily.com | Posted November 06, 2010 Fort Worth, TX

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Brian Scott joins Joe Gibbs Racing. (Photo: LAT Photographic)

Joe Gibbs Racing will add a third Nationwide Series team in 2011 for Brian Scott, who has driven for Braun Racing and RAB Racing this year.

Scott will compete in all 34 races next season for JGR, which still needs to name a crew chief and decide on a car number.

“I feel like I’m ready to make a run at [the title], and I think that being with an organization like Joe Gibbs Racing certainly provides me that opportunity,” said Scott, who spent two years racing a truck and won a Truck Series race at Dover in 2009.

“I’m going to continue to learn every race. I’m going to continue to pick up things and hopefully get better as I get more experience.”

Scott is 14th in the Nationwide standings with one top-five and five top-10 finishes. He ran the first 28 races for Braun before leaving the team after deciding he would not return in 2011. He is finishing out the year with RAB Racing.

While Scott is bringing sponsor funding to the team, JGR President J.D. Gibbs said the team would not field a car just to field a car. The organization has won 30 Nationwide races in 2009 and 2010.

“We’re never going to do a deal just to do a deal,” Gibbs said. “We learned in the past the hard way. Unless you have a guy there that you think can win races, win championships and compete week in and week out, it’s not worth doing.

“Our guys really kind of got together a while go and figured, ‘Hey, Brian is one of those guys when you see what he’s done in just a kind of a short career span,’ and I think that’s really going to bode well for us.”

The two other JGR cars will be driven primarily by Sprint Cup drivers Kyle Busch and Joey Logano. Busch will run in all but six races while Logano has missed 10.

“I love the fact that we have our Cup guys there and our young guys, with Brian, kind of going back and forth and learning some stuff from those guys will really accelerate his learning curve,” Gibbs said. “We expect to be real successful right off the bat.”

That success will depend on how consistent the team is on the track.

“Consistency is something that I’ve battled this year both at Braun Racing and then since the move over to RAB Racing,” Scott said. “There are a number of things that I think have caused inconsistency.

“A lot has been my personal experience and learning process, but I think that I’ve gotten to a step now where I can be consistent, and I feel confident going into an organization like Joe Gibbs Racing.”

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