In a year dominated by frustration and uncertainty, Ronnie Bassett Jr. needed a change of pace.
The former Late Model Stock regular has spent the last two weekends competing in the Sportsman division at Bowman Gray Stadium, tallying finishes of 12th and ninth in Saturday’s two 20-lap features.
Although Ronnie wanted to get a win for Michael Adams’ team, he was thrilled to return to short track racing after spending the past several years explicitly focusing on NASCAR.
“This is a lot different than what I’m use to for sure,” Ronnie said. “It’s nice to get back doing what I grew up doing and I have to thank the Adams family for having me drive for them. [Saturday] was a lot of fun.”
When the 2021 season began, Bassett imagined that he and his brother Dillon would be at Watkins Glen International competing with the NASCAR Xfinity Series on Saturday rather than racing at Bowman Gray.
The two originally planned a full-time Xfinity Series schedule for their small operation but those hopes were derailed when rain washed out qualifying in the season-opening race at Daytona International Speedway.
While missing Daytona was disappointing enough for Ronnie, changes to NASCAR procedures during the COVID-19 pandemic meant that any team outside of the Top 40 in owner points would be locked out for the 26 races without qualifying.
Ronnie and Dillon attempted to make the most of a bad situation by partnering with DGM Racing for a couple of events and tabbing Austin Dillon to drive their car at Circuit of the Americas, which he piloted to a 13th place finish.
Despite making a few races, Ronnie and Dillon concluded that there was no point in entering races if they were unable to gain ground in the Xfinity Series owner points, which motivated them to step away from the series for the rest of 2021.
“We’re done for the year,” Ronnie said. “We won’t be able to run our number and doing everything ourselves has been tough enough. Now we’re just going to regroup and see what we can do going forward.”
Bad luck has been an unfortunate them for Ronnie and Dillon while they have tried to build long-term success in NASCAR.
Their operation barely survived a fire back in 2016, while a hard crash Ronnie sustained on the final lap in an Xfinity Series race at Kentucky Speedway brought the team’s 2020 season to a premature end.
Ronnie admitted that the trend of misfortune has become mentally and financially straining but he is not yet ready to give up on his dream of racing in the Cup Series one day.
Until he and Dillon come up with a concrete plan regarding their Xfinity Series operation, Ronnie plans to stay committed to the family-owned business in Bassett Gutters & More Inc. while simultaneously looking for any available openings to race Late Model Stocks.
“I’m going to be working every day,” Ronnie said. “I need to figure out what I’m going to do and I don’t know how much racing that’s going to include. I’d love to go to some bigger tracks like Hickory or Tri-County but we’ll see what we can come up with.”
Ronnie added that he has thoroughly enjoyed racing at Bowman Gray the last two weekends and is interested in finishing out the 2021 season at the facility with Adams.
Even though Bowman Gray was not part of the original plan, any opportunity to get behind the wheel is worth cherishing for Ronnie.
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