{"id":1032,"date":"2017-02-25T11:36:20","date_gmt":"2017-02-25T16:36:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonmotorsport.com\/?p=1032"},"modified":"2017-02-25T11:36:20","modified_gmt":"2017-02-25T16:36:20","slug":"1032","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2017\/02\/25\/1032\/","title":{"rendered":"Joey Gase races in first Daytona 500"},"content":{"rendered":"

Joey Gase<\/strong> started his racing career in the junior classes at Hawkeye Downs Speedway in 2001. When he was 16, he became the youngest ever Late Model track champion there.<\/p>\n

Two years later he made his Xfinity Series debut and has been racing in NASCAR<\/strong> ever since.<\/p>\n

But, the Daytona 500 is a new beast.<\/p>\n

Joey Gase races in first Daytona 500<\/h2>\n

This Sunday, the Cedar Rapids native will be making his first career start in the Daytona 500 for BK Racing<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very exciting,\u201d Gase said. \u201cIt\u2019s something I\u2019ve been dreamed about ever since I was a kid. I\u2019ve watched NASCAR ever since I can remember.\u201d<\/p>\n

A number of years ago, Gase attended his first Daytona 500.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was here in the stands nine years ago just thinking how cool it was to be up close to the cars,\u201d Gase said. \u201cNow I\u2019m actually racing here.\u201d<\/p>\n

The plans to race this weekend got underway last fall. He started talking to BK Racing Owner Ron Devine, who was interested in Gase because of how much more he has done with less.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe [recognized] my success on the Xfinity side on the superspeedways with a very underbudget team,\u201d Gase said.<\/p>\n

Gase raced early in his career with Go Green Racing<\/strong> and has since driven for Jimmy Means Racing<\/strong>.
\nIt\u2019s no secret that they aren\u2019t top tiered teams, but that hasn\u2019t stopped Gase<\/p>\n

For the team to race in the 500, they would need a sponsor, which can be hard to find for lesser known drivers.<\/p>\n

Gase and co. found the support they needed, though as Best Home Furnishing hopped aboard for the weekend.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was their dream to sponsor a Daytona 500 car and it was mine to be in the Daytona 500,\u201d Gase said. \u201cWe were able to help each other out there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gase finished 15th in his Can-Am Duel qualifying race, and will start 33rd on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Fans can watch Gase in the Daytona 500 this Sunday on Fox. The green flag will fly at 2:00 p.m. ET<\/p>\n

Lineup for the 500<\/h2>\n\n\n<\/colgroup>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Daytona 500 Starting Lineup<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Position<\/td>\nDriver<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1<\/td>\nChase Elliott<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2<\/td>\nDale Earnhardt Jr.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
3<\/td>\nJamie McMurray<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
4<\/td>\nDenny Hamlin<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
5<\/td>\nKevin Harvick<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
6<\/td>\nClint Bowyer<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
7<\/td>\nBrad Keselowski<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
8<\/td>\nKurt Busch<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
9<\/td>\nMatt Kenseth<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
10<\/td>\nA.J. Allmendinger<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
11<\/td>\nTrevor Bayne<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
12<\/td>\nAustin Dillon<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
13<\/td>\nMartin Truex Jr.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
14<\/td>\nDanica Patrick<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
15<\/td>\nAric Almirola<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
16<\/td>\nRyan Newman<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
17<\/td>\nJoey Logano<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
18<\/td>\nKyle Larson<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
19<\/td>\nCole Whitt<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
20<\/td>\nTy Dillon<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
21<\/td>\nRicky Stenhouse Jr.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
22<\/td>\nDavid Gilliland<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
23<\/td>\nDaniel Suarez<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
24<\/td>\nMichael McDowell<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
25<\/td>\nKyle Busch<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
26<\/td>\nJimmie Johnson<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
27<\/td>\nMatt DiBenedetto<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
28<\/td>\nKasey Kahne<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
29<\/td>\nChris Buescher<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
30<\/td>\nDJ Kennington<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
31<\/td>\nLandon Cassill<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
32<\/td>\nMichael Waltrip<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
33<\/td>\nJoey Gase<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
34<\/td>\nJeffery Earnhardt<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
35<\/td>\nCorey LaJoie<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
36<\/td>\nErik Jones<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
37<\/td>\nPaul Menard<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
38<\/td>\nRyan Blaney<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
39<\/td>\nBrendan Gallagher<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
40<\/td>\nElliott Sadler<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Joey Gase started his racing career in the junior classes at Hawkeye Downs Speedway in 2001. When he was 16, he became the youngest ever Late Model track champion there. Two years later he made his Xfinity Series debut and has been racing in NASCAR ever since. But, the Daytona 500 is a new beast. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":315,"featured_media":1037,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[364,502,501,14],"class_list":["post-1032","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","tag-bk-racing","tag-daytona-500","tag-joey-gase","tag-nascar"],"modified_by":"Chris Soulsby","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1032","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/315"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1032"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1032\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}