He tried but Derrike Cope just can’t quite get away from NASCAR.
The 1990 Daytona 500 winner co-operated Starcom Racing in the Cup Series for his most recent national touring effort from 2017 to 2021. They went Trans-Am Racing under the Starcom Racing banner but Cope certainly played a lot of golf too.
Somewhere along the way, Cope missed big time oval racing and the right opportunity led to the creation of Cope Family Racing in the NASCAR Xfinity Series starting this season.
“You can only play so much golf,” Cope told Sportsnaut on Saturday. “We tried. We sold our charter to 23XI and played around in Trans-Am but we’ve been in NASCAR since 1980. It’s been my whole life and I don’t really enjoy anything else.
“I love NASCAR. I enjoy road racing and I think we’ve learned a lot doing it to help us this year. We’re going to be well-rounded but I have missed NASCAR racing.”
Trans-Am is where Cope first came across Thomas Annunziata, who raced with cousin Nick Tucker at Nitro Motorsports, and is working towards a NASCAR career. Cope had already purchased a car with the expectation of running road courses and short tracks with Annunziata but the availability of Leland Honeyman Jr. who was available to run speedways and intermediates resulted in a full-time campaign for Cope Family Racing.
“It was just about the opportunity to do it the right way,” Cope said. “We’re going to attempt to run every race. They’re going to share the ride. Thomas has some Trans-Am conflicts so we might bring out a second car on occasion to make sure he gets his races in too. It’s going to be a lot of fun.”
The team, running the No. 70, will have A-program ECR engines and B-program Richard Childress Racing support. This means similar to Jordan Anderson Racing, having cars that are about one year behind in terms of updates and without access to current year engineering notes.
“Our engine program is top of the line,” Cope said. “It’s the best deal. It’s our job to get us the rest of the way there and we can make up for that on road races when you have a specialist behind the wheel on those tracks.”
At 66, don’t expect Cope to follow in the footsteps of Mike Wallace, who is trying to make the Daytona 500 at the age of 65 next month.
“I’ve already done that in 2021,” he said. “He’s a really good superspeedway racer and if it makes him happy, especially given what he’s gone through the past year, more power to him. I think it takes a little bit of time for your muscle memory to catch up. Things happen faster but then you get comfortable and the game slows down.
“I think that’s what it’s going to be like for him too.”
It helps that Cope has the Harley J. Earl trophy and that introduction that comes with it — the 1990 Daytona 500 champion, Derrike Cope.
“It means everything to me,” Cope said. “For me, it was the highlight of a journey that my father and I embarked on. We set out to go Cup racing and started from Winston West and rode the momentum to Daytona to win the ultimate thing. It carries with you the rest of time and to hear my name said along the all-time greats of the sport, it just means everything.”