The history of NY Racing Team dates back to 2009, when John Cohen, an entrepreneur from New Jersey who had previously been active in the nightclub and restaurant business, founded his own racing team with Xxxtreme Motorsport. The entry took place in the NASCAR Nationwide Series at the time, with the team making its debut at the season opener in Daytona. With this, Cohen, one of the few African American team owners in North American motorsports, laid the foundation for a project that would undergo numerous transformations over more than a decade.
The jump to the Cup Series came late in the 2012 season in Phoenix, where David Reutimann drove the No. 44 Chevrolet into competition for the first time. Under the name Team Xtreme Racing, the team competed in numerous part-time efforts between 2012 and 2015, with drivers such as Travis Kvapil, Scott Riggs, Reed Sorenson, and J. J. Yeley taking turns behind the wheel. These years were characterized by a small budget, great fighting spirit, and constant efforts to hold their own in the Cup field.
The team wrote a particularly extraordinary chapter in February 2015: Shortly before the race in Atlanta, a pickup truck, trailer, and the No. 44 race car were stolen from a hotel parking lot in Morrow, Georgia. The case made headlines nationwide before the car was found undamaged in a ditch. However, the recovery came too late for the Atlanta race entry, and the team had to sit it out.
After several breaks and a brief stint with the No. 7 in 2018, the team was henceforth known as NY Racing Team, a deliberate reference to the state of New York, although the shop is located in Statesville, North Carolina. The biggest milestone in recent history is considered the team’s return to the Daytona 500 in 2022, when veteran Greg Biffle qualified the No. 44 Chevrolet for America’s most famous race, supported by technical collaboration with Richard Childress Racing and Hendrick Motorsports.
In the current era, John Cohen remains the constant figure as team owner, while the No. 44 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 continues to compete in the Cup Series part-time program. For 2026, the team is once again counting on the experienced pairing of J. J. Yeley and Joey Gase, two drivers who keep this small but persistent project from Statesville alive with their experience and determination, hoping to compete for points at select races.
NY Racing Team in the News