Phoenix Racing Team
Prism Motorsports, formerly named MSRP Motorsports, is a NASCAR team competing in the Sprint Cup and the Nationwide Series. It is owned by former NASCAR driver Phil Parsons and Randy Humphrey, along with their wives Stacey and Marcia (hence the original name MSRP: Marcia, Stacey, Rick, Phil). The team is infamous for being a start and park organization, meaning that the team qualifies a car for races, but it eventually parks the car after just a few laps to avoid the costs of running a full race, even though the car is perfectly able to continue on. The bad publicity generated by the practice led Phil Parsons to refuse to answer questions about MSRP in 2008, but subsequently Parsons justified the practice by saying that "we furnished a living for some families, so there was some good that came out of it." In 2009, MSRP continued with two Nationwide Series teams and finally finished a race, while it also added a Sprint Cup team under the Prism name that qualified for 30 races but only finished two. After the season, the entire team became known as Prism.
In 2010, the team has two Sprint Cup teams, #66 and #55, led by drivers Dave Blaney and Michael McDowell, which drive Toyota Camrys provided under a technical alliance with Michael Waltrip Racing (MWR). Four drivers circulated among the two Nationwide Series cars (90 & 91) in 2009 -- Terry Cook, Johnny Chapman, Justin Hobgood, and Blaney -- but it is unclear whether the Nationwide Series part of the team will continue in 2010, as it did not compete at Daytona.
The #66 car is a Nascar Sprint Cup Series team that debuted in 2009 under a technical alliance with MWR, which supplies the team's Toyota Camry, engines and technical support. Terry Labonte ran the #66 for the 2009 Daytona 500, where he finished 24th. Dave Blaney has run the rest of the season, except for the Aarons 499 at Talladega, where Michael McDowell drove while Blaney was away with his family. According to Blaney, Prism had anticipated attempting to run all of the laps in "six or eight" Sprint Cup races in which the team was able to secure full sponsorships, which included Window World for the Daytona 500 and Aaron's for the Coca-Cola 600. The Denny Hamlin Foundation was on the car at Lowes Motor Speedway and Talladega. but they failed to qualify for the former. Ultimately, the team qualified for 30 of the 34 Sprint Cup races in the 2009 season -- 29 by Blaney and 1 by Labonte --but only ran two complete races (the Daytona 500 and the Coca-Cola 600). For the remainder of 2009, the #66 Prism car was a start and park team, much like their Nationwide Series counterparts.
The #90 first raced in the season opening Daytona 300 in 2008 with former Nationwide Series champion Steve Grissom driving. Grissom did not qualify in on time, but fell back on his Champion's Provisional. At Auto Club Speedway of Southern California, Scott Lynch drove the #90. At Las Vegas Motor Speedway 2006 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Champion Todd Bodine drove. Finally, at Atlanta the team found a full-time driver in Johnny Chapman. Chapman has run every race since AMS aside from the road courses, where both driving school instructor Chris Cook and NASCAR Canadian Tire Series driver Don Thomson, Jr. have been in the seat. The team's best finish was 36th, with a best qualfying effort of 29th by Chris Cook at Watkins Glen. At Lowe's Motor Speedway the team failed to qualify when Johnny Chapman crashed during qualifying. Johnny Chapman again started and parked the #90 for most of the races in 2009.
Phoenix Racing Team Video
