Parker Kligerman will not return to drive Gaunt Brothers Racing’s No. 96 machine in the NASCAR Cup Series in 2020.
Kligerman had driven the car on a part-time basis in 2018 and 2019, entering 18 races between the two seasons – the majority coming in 2019 with 14 starts. Those 2019 appearances constituted all but one of the team’s races that season, with Drew Herring running the season finale last November at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
The veteran driver’s best finishes with the team came at the Daytona 500 and fall Talladega race in 2019, crossing the line 15th in both events. His final run in the No. 96 was a 22nd-place effort at the second 2019 race at Texas Motor Speedway.
“It was a super cool opportunity,” Kligerman said in an NBC Sports release. “I didn’t think I was going to get a second shot at Cup. Then, I had that opportunity at the Coke 600 (in 2018 with the team) and last year we did way more races than I ever thought we would do and got to be a part of the Toyota family.”
Kligerman, a broadcaster and reporter for NBC Sports during NASCAR events, will continue those duties in 2020, albeit without a Cup ride lined up. He has scored two wins in his NASCAR career – both came in the Gander RV & Outdoors NASCAR Truck Series at Talladega, in 2012 and 2017.
Gaunt Brothers Racing still has yet to announce their driver plans for 2020. Daniel Suarez has been heavily rumored to take over the ride on a full-time basis.
Adam Cheek joined Frontstretch as a contributing writer in January 2019. A 2020 graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University, he covered sports there and later spent a year and a half as a sports host on 910 the Fan in Richmond, VA. He's freelanced for Richmond Magazine and the Richmond Times-Dispatch and also hosts the Adam Cheek's Sports Week podcast. Adam has followed racing since the age of three, inheriting the passion from his grandfather, who raced in amateur events up and down the East Coast in the 1950s.