Patrick Connell has been released from MC Motorsports' NR Night in America, effective immediate, team owner & CEO of MC Motorsports Marty Cmejla announced on Thursday, January 4th, 2024 at 9:35 AM CT. He will remain on MC Motorsports for ASPHALT MEDIA competition, where he scored his first win there in his first start with us.

Patrick Connell was signed to drive for MC Motorsports in NRNiA on November 19th, 2023 to drive the #46 Toyota/Chevrolet for the team. Connell would be signed through the end of 2023, with a contract extension expected no matter his performance on the track.

Before the signing, Connell had done 10 NR Night in America starts. He scored only 1 Top 10, and 4 Top 20s in those starts with a best finish of 8th and a worst finish of 37th. Not the greatest statistics, but due to Cmejla and Connell's IRL friendship, he would be signed.

Connell would kick off his MC Motorsports tenures on November 21st, 2023 with the Gen-6 cars at Talladega. He finished 16th, a solid start for him. But then, on November 28th with Xfinity cars at Atlanta (the race Marty Cmejla got his first win), Connell was L5'd for "numerous successful attempts at 'ARCA Braking' crashes", according to NR Night in America Legend Braden Muhvic.

He would get the team's worst finish all-time of 40th, as Cmejla, in the same race, would get the team's all-time best NR finish of 1st. Connell would finish his 5 starts with MCM to-date with a 20th, 21st, and a 35th. In the end, his stats with MC Motorsports for NR Night were 5 starts, 0 wins, 0 Top-5s, 0 Top-10s, 2 Top-20s, 3 Top-30s, 0 Poles, 2-DNFs, and an average finish of 26.4.

Connell then took it to the Driver's Meeting where according to Connell, NR drivers were "telling me to leave MC Motorsports because of the trash team policies."

Cmejla said, "go ahead, nobody is stopping you," to respond. In the end, nobody was. But, he would decide to stay and run the classic "Ice-White" (Idk Player quote) #46 MC Motorsports / mcmiracing.com scheme. He would qualify rough for the duels, starting outside of the Top 25. On the first lap entering Turn 3, the car lost itself, and he overcorrected into innocent bystander Devins Baker.

Devins Baker went to X and posted about "how his duel got ended because of this." MC Motorsports released a message after saying "We will make a statement on Patrick Connell after the night wraps up." But, this post was deleted. Initially, Cmejla planned on just releasing him right there. 

Connell would DNF from the duel after that, not qualifying for the race. Then he would also DNQ from Charlotte Roval Race 3. The next day Connell would release a "satire" paragraph saying he would take a break from NR until February.  That night, Cmejla and Connell would discuss the future of him on the team for NR Night. Eventually, on Thursday (today at the time of this article), Cmejla would just release him.

Connell would quickly be signed be the remastered Beckman Motorsports team owned by Jason Beckman. With this, MC Motorsports has formed a small alliance with BMS, that involves just extra help on drafting-style tracks.

Connell, will remain on the ASPHALT MEDIA program for MC Motorsports. Ultimately, Cmejla ends up the deal sad. He had the 2024 schemes all ready to go and was excited for the set-in-stone (at the time) contracts for the team, but he is still happy MC Motorsports won't have to deal with the rough statistics from Patrick Connell on the NR Night side of things.

MC Motorsports © 2024 Press Release
Article Created at 4:16 PM 1/4/2024