Bob Leavine, owner of Leavine Family Racing has long said that the pandemic has affected his race team. On Wednesday, it came to a head.

LFR will fold at seasons end. The team announced they have sold all assets and will finish the year off before closing up shop.

“It’s with great sadness today that I announce the sale of the Leavine Family Racing team, assets and charter,” a statement read. “Since 2011, Sharon and our entire family have enjoyed being a part of the NASCAR community with Matt DiLiberto joining the family as a co-owner in 2016. We will say goodbye at the conclusion of the 2020 NASCAR Cup Series season.

“This decision has not been made lightly. Family has always been a part of the team’s name and this is how we view every member of our race team — as our family. There is no good time to make this announcement, but doing it earlier allows our people to explore employment opportunities, for next season, to provide for their families. There will be opportunities with the new owners which was important to our decision.

“This year has been challenging for not only our race team, but our industry, our country and the entire world. The pandemic has impacted our economy and unfortunately that’s just not something we are able to overcome in order to continue racing beyond this season.

“Leavine Family Racing will continue to compete through the end of 2020, and we want to leave on a positive note – contending for top-finishes with Christopher Bell, Toyota, TRD, and all of our partners. Thank you to everyone for your support through this journey. Thank you to our partners and fans and most of all, thank you to everyone who has been part of the Leavine Family Racing family over the last decade.”

That’s why this has big ramifications. It could trickle down that Jones is out of his ride now. Which could lead him to Hendrick Motorsports or even Stewart-Haas Racing.

This will certainly shake up silly season dramatically. Bell is now a free agent and you know Toyota and Joe Gibbs Racing doesn’t want to let him go. With no where with the team open, unless Erik Jones isn’t retained, then Bell is out.

Still, for JGR, they need a new alliance. That’s two in the last three years that they’ve lost. With so many new younger drivers coming through the TRD program and only four seats at JGR, a growth somewhere is vastly needed.

Leavine said too that the chassis and equipment came from JGR and will be returned. The only things on the sale is the charter, building and other equipment.

He also said that he couldn’t risk his 4+ decade construction business and did feel like he didn’t get the value out of his charter like he had hoped.

“We definitely did not get out of our charter what we put into our charter,” said Leavine. “So, from our standpoint, it is very difficult to say that it was a great investment. It just allowed us to run full time for the five years after we bought it. That’s the best thing I can say for the charter system.”

Leavine, who says he still had 11 races unsold for sponsorship this season, needed a new car next year. Then with the pandemic, it hurt finding sponsors to fill the gap as well pushing the new car coming out for another year.

“We had a whole lot of things banking on the Next Gen coming in,” Leavine said. “Our deal with JGR, our affiliation required us to do certain things. We were looking forward to being a standalone team with one or two cars. So, the pandemic, and sponsorship and how it affected (his construction business), our major sponsor, and then having to come back and buy all the cars again for next year, because we had planned on not needing cars next year. 

“It was a snowball effect on multiple things. We saw no way out. We could not afford the affiliation, and what we did this year, next year. That’s what we banked on. Okay, we will do this one year, run good, get our charter value up, and we had a plan. That plan came tumbling down with the pandemic. Then you take a bad business model; it doesn’t work for us.”

Leavine, said he asked NASCAR and otter owners this past spring for changes. They got denied.

“Very disappointed in what came out of that meeting,” Leavine continued. “I knew that was probably going to be the straw that broke our back. I had to start looking for how best do we protect our team. How best do we keep people employed. A lot of things went into that decision.”