Michael Annett joins Justin Allgaier in new-look two-car team
RELATED: See all roster changes for 2015
CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- HScott Motorsports announced Tuesday during the Charlotte Motor Speedway Media Tour presented by Technocom that Michael Annett will join Justin Allgaier and the organization in 2015, ultimately expanding to a two-car NASCAR Sprint Cup Series team.
Annett, who is still without a crew chief and car number for the new season, comes from Tommy Baldwin Racing where he was a contender for the 2014 Sunoco Rookie of the Year Award and earned his best finish of 16th in May of last year at Talladega Superspeedway.
Annett's move to HScott is not unfamiliar, though, as team owner Harry Scott Jr. explained that he and Annett have been around each other for quite some time.
"We've kind of come up though the ranks together," Scott explained. "I started with ownership the same time he started in the national series."
Besides Annett having familiarity with Scott, the 28-year-old Des Moines, Iowa, native also recognized the small team's accomplishments on track.
"It doesn't take very long for them to have success," Annett said. "We saw that last year (in the team's first full season in the Sprint Cup Series). Justin and I started as rookies and we were parked next to each other. And he kept moving further and further away from me to ask questions."
With the season opener at Daytona International Speedway less than a month away, Annett also said that despite the rush to put a team together, he would not have made the move without full confidence that it would be a benefit.
"There's definitely a rush, and I've been in situations where we've put together a team late and we've made some mistakes -- and not necessarily the team," Annett said. "Maybe I've made jumps into certain situations where we didn't sit back and calculate them, and that's when you get behind. We're definitely rushed, but we wouldn't have made this decision if we didn't think we could pull it off with success, and not just halfway through the season."
Justin Allgaier, who will be back in the No. 51 car with Steve Addington as crew chief (as well as overall competition director for HScott Motorsports), spent a lot of the offseason reflecting on his rookie showing last year and what he would do differently in 2015.
"I look at 2014 and I look at some of the things that I did as a driver, some of the times that I maybe got too excited, too aggressive, maybe not aggressive enough in certain aspects," Allgaier said. "I feel like there are a lot of things that I look back at and think, 'Man, I wish I would have done that differently.'
"I look at 2015 not as a sophomore season, but to keep that learning alive and to look at it as another rookie season. I'm not smart enough to know everything. To get at these race tracks again for a third or fourth time, I'm still learning. Hopefully, we can take all of that and use that to our advantage."
Because Allgaier spent his rookie season last year on a single-car team, the addition of Annett sparks the idea that the two Sprint Cup sophomores can work together both in the garage and on the track.
"To have a second car, I believe in today's age of NASCAR is paramount," Allgaier said. "To have that teammate to be able to lean on. When we go to the race track on a weekly basis as a single-car team, you're shooting in the dark. You hope that you hit everything exactly right.
"To have a teammate it allows the opportunity to try new things, to grow, but also, too, Michael and I are a lot alike. We're very similar as far as our on-track driving abilities, our thoughts, what we want in a race car, so that excites me because we can work together and really grow. … I think all of that really helps our organization grow."
Growth appears to be essential for HScott Motorsports as the team now houses two young second-year Cup drivers both hungry for their first elite-series win and from the sounds of it, willing to work together to achieve success.