Historic moment as Hong Kong team competes in Nascar
KCMG team boss and founder Paul Ip hopes they can complete a full season at America’s premier auto-racing series in 2018 after ‘testing the waters’ at Darlington Raceway
A Hong Kong-based racing team made history by becoming the first team from the city to compete at Nascar in the Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway, South Carolina.
KCMG, a motorsports group based in Hong Kong, competed in the Nascar Xfinity Sports Clips Haircuts VFW in a one-off partnership deal with Richard Childress Racing, on Saturday.
American driver Brandon Jones, 20, driving a Chevrolet, completed 148 laps and finished 23rd from P27 in the 321km race behind race winner, Denny Hamlin in a Toyota, but it was a big moment for KCMG, whose reputation has gone from strength to strength having competed at the 2015 world endurance championship and winning the LMP2 class at Le Mans the same year, a first for Hong Kong.
KCMG team boss and founder Paul Ip was delighted a Hong Kong team had made history at Darlington having “tested the waters” in Nascar. He hopes to find long-term sponsorship so that KCMG can complete a full season in Nascar in 2018.
“KCMG have always aimed to be a global racing team and one of the areas we really want to get into is the States. Coming into the States you have to do Nascar. So we’re here and we’re trying to look into what we can do in the future with Nascar,” said Ip.
KCMG were established in 2007 and have already become a major force in the development of professional racing across the Asian Pacific region.