Tyler Jet Motorsports

Tyler Jet Motorsports was a NASCAR Winston Cup Series team.

History

Tyler Jet Motorsports was owned by Tim Beverley, owner of the airplane sales company that shared a name with the race team, and was formed in 1998 after Beverley purchased the assets of DarWal, Inc. and ISM Racing and merged them into one team.

Tyler Jet's original car was the No. 35 Tabasco Pontiac, which had been ISM's car, and was driven by several drivers (including Darrell Waltrip) before Tabasco pulled out of NASCAR following the 1998 season.

In 1999, the team fielded Pontiacs and switched to the No. 45, with sponsorship from the 10-10-345 long distance telephone service. Rich Bickle, (who incidentally, had driven for Darrell Waltrip in the Craftsman Truck Series) was hired as the driver, but was released late in the season, and was replaced by David Green. Green recorded the best finish of his Cup series career, a 12th at Phoenix, and won the only pole in his (and the team's) Cup career, the following weekend at the inaugural Cup series race at Homestead-Miami Speedway. During the team's first two seasons of operations, four drivers and three crew chiefs were hired.

For the 2000 season, Tyler Jet switched to the No. 10 and hired Johnny Benson to pilot the car on November 22, 1999. Their first exposure came at the Daytona 500, where Benson's unsponsored Pontiac took the lead late in the race and held the lead for 39 laps, only to be passed by cars that had made full pit stops under a late race caution (Benson was playing strategy, having only stopped for two tires and fuel his last stop) and finish 12th.

Lycos signed on as sponsor for the No. 10 and stayed with them until the 2000 Pepsi 400, where Tyler Jet pulled them off the car due to nonpayment; Lycos would eventually sue Tyler Jet on July 16, 2001. They would run unsponsored for the next four races, but Beverley was forced to sell the team afterwards. The car, which had just acquired sponsorship from Aaron's, was sold to MB2 Motorsports on July 20. The team would continue to be based in Tyler Jet's shop located near Lowe's Motor Speedway, and ran until the end of the 2005 season when the car number, sponsor (Valvoline) and driver (Scott Riggs) moved to Evernham Motorsports. The successor team and car were Ginn Racing's No. 14, which was sold to Dale Earnhardt, Inc. and merged into its No. 15 team, which in turn was folded after the merger that created Earnhardt Ganassi Racing; the resulting team, by 2014 was simply known as Chip Ganassi Racing, was in turn purchased by Trackhouse Racing Team in 2021.

References

Auto racing teams established in 1998
Auto racing teams disestablished in 2000
Defunct NASCAR teams
American auto racing teams

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