Mayweather Looks To Deal Knockout at Daytona

Floyd Mayweather Jr. earned two nicknames during his time winning twelve titles as a welterweight boxer, one of them was Money and the other was Pretty Boy. Well, they both seem apt considering that in the latest news that Mayweather will be starting a NASCAR team that is entering its first car this month! 

First teased way back in March 2020 the plan is to have The Money Team Racing (TMT) – co-owned by NASCAR mainstay William Auchmoody – to enter a Chevrolet in the Daytona 500 on February 20th. The car will be competing with the number 50, and is set to be driven by Kaz Grala, an established Daytona presence, along with veteran Tony Eury as crew chief. Their main sponsor is lined up to be Pit Viper. 

Mayweather is by no means the first sports star to successfully launch a NASCAR team into the big leagues. He joins other luminaries such as legendary basketball star Michael Jordan, and Football Hall of Famer Emmitt Smith who both co-own different NASCAR teams that are set to compete at the highest levels in the sport.  

And while Mayweather admits that he’s not as familiar with the sport as some he is excited to be a part of it, saying, “I love fast cars and I love to compete. I know NASCAR will not be easy, but anything easy isn’t worth doing to me.” 

But he is another celebrity in a growing trend for successful NASCAR owners who have tended to be business entrepreneurs in the past - much like owners of any sports team.  

And like Jordan and Smith, Mayweather is in a league of this own. The reason being that plenty of celebrities over the years have tried their hand NASCAR ownership and came up short. Among many notable names on the list of failed attempts are NFL stars Randy Moss, Dan Marino, and Terry Bradshaw and many more.  

The issues are as wide ranging as the colors of the cars at the starting line. Fielding a competitive team isn’t as easy as it might seem. One of the problems is finding a great talent like drivers and crew chiefs who can race with the best. Some might think that there isn’t much to going fast and turning left, but they’d be wrong - as this article attests.  

Another issue is money; it costs a lot of money to field one car. Estimates range from a few hundred-thousand dollars to millions. And as any pit mechanic worth their road salt will tell you, you need more than one car to compete. So when sponsorships fail to materialize it’s difficult to keep going no matter how many Nike sponsorships the owner has.  

But TMT managed to overcome all of those problems and put forward a competitive team. “Pretty Boy” Floyd has always been a fierce competitor and his stewardship of the team is bound to be interesting to watch going forward. This should prove to be a very exciting season indeed.  ​