Florida developer buys MB2 Motorsports
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) – The future of MB2 Motorsports was shored up Wednesday when a Florida developer purchased the majority shares of the Nextel Cup team. Bobby Ginn, president and founder of Ginn Resorts, took over all shares owned by MB2 founder Nelson Bowers. The team fields Cup cars for Sterling Marlin and Joe Nemechek.
“I’ve been a NASCAR fan for my entire life, all of my family are NASCAR fans,” Ginn said. “So the idea of being involved in a team was a lifelong dream.”
The ownership change gives MB2 financial security. It also means MB2 won’t have to form an alliance with one of NASCAR’s super-teams to remain competitive and on track to implement the “Car of Tomorrow” in 2007.
“If we hadn’t done something, maybe not next year or the next, but at some point, we wouldn’t have been here (competing),” Frye said. “Now we’re solidifying our future. Our organization is going forward. This is not a Band-Aid; it’s an opportunity to make this team better for a long time.”
The team name will remain the same through the end of this season, but likely change in 2007.
Ginn also hopes to expand the team, which currently has two Cup cars and a development program that has Kraig Kinser in the Truck Series and Jesus Hernandez in NASCAR’s Drive for Diversity program.
“Primarily, we’re focusing on things going into next year,” Ginn said. “We obviously would like to expand. We went into this thinking this would be a four-car team, and we’re striving to get to a four-car team.”
MB2 has two Cup victories, Nemechek in 2004 and former driver Johnny Benson in 2002. But Frye said Ginn’s different businesses will provide resources the team never had before.
“You’re going to have to have a platform that will help you be around for the next 10 years,” he said. “The assets that Bob brings to us from his company – the things that they do, the golf tournaments, the resorts and the clubs – we’re going to have a portfolio that is very different from anyone else in the garage.
“Things that we can cross-promote, things we can co-brand. That’s what we needed. We needed an identity, and this creates that.”