MOORESVILLE, N.C. (May 4, 2022) -- After just 10 races of the 2022 NASCAR Xfinity Series season, JR Motorsports is on pace to challenge the best season in team history.
In 2014, JRM earned nine victories, which still stands as the most in a single season for the team. Four of those came in the first eight races.
So far this season, Noah Gragson has won twice and Josh Berry once, with a chance for three in a row this weekend at Darlington Raceway. Just one other time in team history has JRM won three consecutive NXS events, and that led directly to the team's first series championship in 2014.
Chase Elliott, who this weekend will make his first NXS start for JRM since last season at Indianapolis (subbing for an injured Michael Annett) in the No. 88 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet, won at Texas and Darlington on back-to-back weekends in April that year and Kevin Harvick followed it with a triumph at Richmond the following race.
Elliott would go on to win at Chicago in July on the way to the season title, which he clinched a week before the end of the season at Phoenix.
This weekend's race is the 11th of the year, which is the one-third mark of the season, and JRM already has three victories. That was last accomplished in 2021, ironically enough with victories at Atlanta (Justin Allgaier), Martinsville (Berry) and Darlington (Allgaier).
The rain-plagued race at Talladega Superspeedway ended the team's chances to win three straight, with Gragson coming in sixth when the skies opened up with 23 laps remaining.
Success has come early and often for JRM so far in 2022. In the A-GAME 200 last weekend at Dover Motor Speedway, Berry won the race over Allgaier (second), with Gragson fourth and Sam Mayer fifth. That effort was the best four-car finish in team history and the first time JRM had put four cars in the top five in any race.
It was also the team's 61st victory since 2005. In 2017, when the team went to four cars on a full-time basis, JRM's victory total stood at 31. Berry's triumph at the Monster Mile was the 30th in just five full seasons plus 10 races of four- and sometimes five-car competition.