Hamilton Means Racing plans to make Cup debut in 2012: Hamilton Means Racing, a team created by four principal owners with various levels of involvement in NASCAR, have announced their intentions to go NASCAR Sprint Cup Racing in 2012. Dell Hamilton, Jimmy Means, Arash Khorsandi and Kelly Owen will team up and look to make their first start in the Cup series at Daytona in February. The team is still reviewing their options for the driver of their newly formed #52. Recruiting talented individuals available in NASCAR and obtaining additional equipment vital to the team's effort, is the focus of the group at this point. Their plans are to operate from Means Motorsports race shop located in Forest City, NC alongside his fulltime Nationwide team. Means, no stranger to the NASCAR scene, has many years of experience as a Driver/Owner with 455 starts in the Cup series dating back to 1973. He has also owned and managed the #52 Nationwide team for the past 10 season since retiring as a driver. Hamilton Means Racing is hoping to secure additional partnerships and sponsors based on the relationships that Means, aka "Smut", has developed within the sport.
Hamilton, a businessman from Chattanooga Tennessee, operates Crusader Staffing who has been, and will continue to be, a longtime supporter of MacDonald Motorsports in the NASCAR Nationwide Series. Hamilton is excited about his role in the startup of HMR Racing, and stated "after researching what it takes to be competitive in NASCAR's top series, we are ready to get going and establish our team in the series." Owen and Khorsandi, Floridian natives, longtime friends and fans of the sport, see this opportunity as a way to fulfill a lifetime dream of being involved in the operations as well as creating new relationships in the sport of NASCAR. Owen entered the sport as a sponsor and has been involved with operations at Means Motorsports dating back to the summer of 2010. The two say they are aware of the obstacles ahead of them but look forward to the challenge.