FANTASY NASCAR Racin

Borland started out in the Indy Car series in 1998. BY 1999 He had been hand-picked by renowned Indy car owner Roger Penske; but not for the Indy car series, but to head up his CUP teams. He started out with Penske as a design/simulation engineer for the two car Sprint CUP effort. At the same time Penske hired ace open wheel USAC driver Ryan Newman as a development driver. Newman and Borland paired together for a few races in 2000 and 2001 while Newman was learning the transition from open wheels to stock cars. Starting in 2002 the two were a pair until 2006. During that time they won on 12 occasions and never finished worse than seventh in the points. After a brief stint with Michael Waltrip Racing and Dale Jarrett to start the 2007 season, Borland joined Haas CNC Racing as director of competition and remained

through the transition to SHR in 2012. Borland had worked as a crew chief for 10 seasons in NASCAR before he was promoted to Vice President of Competition for Stewart Haas Racing. Borland was reunited with Newman, who was hired to drive the No. 39 Chevy. At the end of the season, Borland took over crew chief duties for Newman after Tony Gibson was aligned with Danica Patrick. Borland enjoyed a dual role of crew chief and technical director with Newman in 2013, and the pair won their 13th Cup race together at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Newman’s home track. Newman moved to Richard Childress Racing for the 2014 season and after Newman’s departure, Borland had delved into the engineering end of SHR and shifted his concentration to Haas' Formula 1 project. In 2017 Borland decided he wanted to get back in the game and took over crew chief duties for Paul Menard at RCR. They had two Top 5 finishes. Menard left RCR at the end of the 2017 to drive for the Wood Brothers in 2018. Borland spent all of 2018 heading up the efforts of Ty Dillon at Germaine Racing after leaving Richard Childress when no driver was hired to fill the seat of the #27 car. Borland had lead the efforts of Paul Menard in the #27 in 2017. The whole season was a struggle as they didn't have a single Top 10 finish. The best results was an eleventh place results twice (Phoenix, Talladega). They had 19 finishes inside the Top 20 and that seemed to be where they raced the entire season. Germaine Racing has a technical alliance with Richard Childress Racing and that team struggled all of 2018 also; so it's no surprise that Dillon also had a poor season. Things are scheduled to remain the same for 2019. Germaine Racing is moving their shop from Mooresville NC out to be near RCRC so they can have a closer working relationship starting in 2019. Things didn't seem to improve much in 2019. Dillon only had one Top 10 finish in 2018; and he did have one Top 5 and three Top 10's in 2019; but that wasn't anywhere near the amount of improvement the team had been hoping for. The highlight of the season was when Ty finish fourth in the July race at Daytona. 2020 once again saw Borland back with Ty Dillon. But the season results showed a downturn in performance and results. They only had one Top 5 finish; that coming at Talladega where Dillon finished third. The only other high light was a tenth place finish at Las Vegas. This would be their only two Top 10 results for 2020. They only had 14 Top 20 finishes; and with a couple months to go in the season Geico announced they would not be back to sponsor the #13 car in 2021. Without a sponsor, Germain Racing decided to sell their Charter and get out of Cup racing. The new team called 23XI Racing bought the Charter and the team owners are Denny Hamlin and NBA star Michael Jordan. Matt Borland did not serve as a crew chief in 2021.