When Big Machine Racing knew Parker Kligerman wasn’t returning for the 2025 NASCAR Xfinity Series season, team owner Scott Borchetta and crew chief Patrick Donahue created a list of drivers they were interested in pursuing. Near the top of that list was Nick Sanchez.
Big Machine spoke to other drivers about the vacancy, but Sanchez was always on the list from his first six-race stint with the team during the 2022 campaign.
“I knew that we were better (from 2022), and I knew Nick had two years of racing experience, even if it is a truck,” Donahue said. “Everything has multiplied, and he has a better understanding of what he wants. He was always on the list, and we needed to pull the trigger on it.”
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Sanchez, who grew up karting and was introduced to NASCAR through Rev Racing and the Drive for Diversity Program, scored two victories in the Craftsman Truck Series in his sophomore season last year. This is the first time in seven years that the Miami native has branched away from Rev Racing.
The two sides remained in touch throughout Sanchez’s Truck Series tenure. During the second half of 2024, Sanchez stuck around after his truck races to get a feel for what being a full-time Xfinity driver would be like in 2025.
With two additional years of experience, he was ready for the jump and felt like he needed to compete more to become a more well-rounded driver.
“In 2023, I made a lot of mistakes as a rookie in the trucks and could have won a lot of races, but I didn’t,” Sanchez said. “In 2024, I won two races but still feel like I could have won more. If I didn’t win, I finished in the top five.
“When I looked at the truck schedule versus the Xfinity schedule, what I felt like I needed most to get ready for Sundays if the opportunity arises, I need seat time. I needed laps at all these tracks that I really don’t have laps at. That was my main reason for the jump because I could have stayed in trucks again with Spire, but I needed a bigger schedule.”
The often-confident Donahue wasn’t concerned about Sanchez’s adjustment period to Xfinity. He saw Sanchez become consistent over the last two seasons and believed the transition to a new full-time driver would be relatively easy for Big Machine Racing in 2025.
“I did not believe that we would change anything from the way we’ve been in the past,” Donahue said. “Maybe that’s arrogant of me, but I was confident enough in the 48 car and my guys that I knew we could change drivers and pick up where we left off.
“I didn’t think we would miss a beat. I just didn’t. I had such confidence in our race cars, in our people, in our processes. I know what to do. I know how to put this together. I knew that we were going to pick right up and go race. I still feel that way. We’ve done that the first few races, and I know we will continue to do that. I came home from Phoenix last fall and felt like we were going to change seats and go race in 2025, and that’s what we’ve done.”
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Through the first five races, Sanchez has an average finish of 18.8, the same average finish he had in eight Xfinity starts in 2022. The No. 48 Chevrolet was involved in a wreck at Daytona International Speedway while running toward the front of the field. The following weekend at Atlanta Motor Speedway, he scored his first top-five finish, rebounding from damage early in the race. The last two weekends have been clean, including a 10th-place finish at Phoenix Raceway. Sanchez currently sits 16th in the championship standings.
While Sanchez is getting used to steeper competition at the Xfinity level, he feels like he already belongs in the series.
“I guess I’m a rookie, but I don’t feel like a rookie,” Sanchez said. “I don’t feel like a rookie in the sense of the past two years I’ve had in trucks. It’s just another race car. There are little nuances about it, but it’s still the same race tracks, and the same rules apply. I’m not taking that big learning curve like I did in 2023.”
Sanchez won’t sugarcoat his goals for 2025, either. Big Machine hasn’t won a race in nearly three years, when Tyler Reddick earned the team’s only victory at Texas Motor Speedway in May 2022. But an affiliation with Richard Childress Racing, which won the opening two races of the season, is crucial to Sanchez’s learning curve.
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To be considered a rewarding season, Sanchez believes he needs to win.
“The only successful year is wins,” Sanchez said. “A lot of people probably say that’s outlandish, but that’s why I’m here. That’s why Scott brought me on as a race car driver. He hasn’t gotten wins the last two years and he wants wins. I want to win.
“A lot of people are wrapping their heads around this race team. We’re not an underdog team, we’re not underfunded, under-budgeted. We have every single resource at our fingertips, and if we don’t have it, we go get it.”
Sanchez returns to his hometrack in Miami this weekend at Homestead-Miami Speedway, where he fell in love with racing. In his lone Xfinity start at the 1.5-mile venue, he placed 25th (2022).
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