Mike Cope Racing returns to Super racing with Stephen Nasse

No stranger to trying out a multitude of racing packages and personnel in the pursuit of speed, Stephen Nasse unloaded at the Georgia Summer Nationals at Cordele this weekend in a Mike Cope Racing owned FUGE Race Cars chassis.

There is a lot of intrigue here because Mike Cope Racing has formally been away from the short track racing game for much of the past decade, instead focusing on its Trans Am Series operations, while there have not been a lot of Dave Fuge built chassis in the national spotlight.

Then there’s Nasse, who has known the Copes for practically his entire life, who kind of backed into the chance to try something else in a season split between his personal team and Anthony Campi Racing.

“I’ve known Mike my whole life and he’s been a real close family friend of ours,” Nasse told Short Track Scene on Friday. “We were actually using his shop a few months ago when we were in the process of building ours so that’s an example of how close we are.

“They called me, about a month or two ago, and asked if I would test this car for them. So we went and did some testing and it went well. I told them, ‘lets bring it here,’ and we tested it here a couple of weks ago and that went well.

“So we decided to try and race it. It’s hard to say when you’re practicing by yourself on how good something is but we figured we’d bring it here and see how it goes.”

Fuge, in addition to the chassis building operation, has NASCAR Truck Series success on his resume as a crew chief and team manager as well. This was just a perfect opportunity for everyone involved, including Fuge and Mike Cope, to try something out with capable people all around.  

“Dave has been around a long time, won Truck championships and he decided to build this car,” Cope said. “We got to talking about it and we’ve been wanting to go Late Model racing again and I used to drive for Stephen’s grandfather and Steven’s dad and mom. We’ve all known each other since we were very young, teenagers.

“So we talked to Jeff (Nasse) about it, that were trying tor run this car, and had a good test and Stephen is really good here too.”

Cope said it’s going to be a work in progress but there are two races on Friday and Saturday to get it right.

“We struggled off the truck, the car being a little too tight, but we’ve worked on it and it’s a one-off race car with no notes on it,” Cope said. “We have nothing to compare to. But Dave is a very smart guy and I bring a little to the table. My son Travis is here and it’s a collaborative effort that hopefully works out well for everyone.

“You know what they say — nothing ventured, nothing gained.”

So far, Nasse has enjoyed getting to know Fuge too.

“I don’t really know Dave all that well,” Nasse said. “I just met him here with this deal and I like working with him. We’ve had a lot of fun working together so far. Time will tell, you know, because it’s hard to say on anything. We did find something at the shop that we didn’t necessarily like so they had to do a little welding on the car and one the frame.

“That was after our test and now we’re struggling to get the car to react with what we’ve done to it. Hopefully we can get that figured out and we should be pretty good.”

With the Copes wanting to go back racing, and with Travis bringing his own resume behind the wheel, is there a possibility this relationship could extend into the autumn months?

 “You never know,” Cope said. “That is the direction we want to head. The relationships are very old, right? Me and the Nasses. We’re both from Pinellas Park and there is just a fondness from a family perspective.  

“Hopefully it all works out but we got to find that little bit of speed and Dave is working on that. I’m confident it’s going to work out.”

Short Track Scene’s Daniel Vining contributed to this report.