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Report: Leavine Family Racing hopes to return to race shop two months after devastating fire

michael mcdowell getty

Michael McDowell, driver of the No. 95 Ford Fusion for Leavine Family Racing.

Leavine Family Racing is going home soon.

The one-car Sprint Cup team hopes to return to its race shop in Concord, N.C., after the July 11 race at Kentucky, driver Michael McDowell told LastCar.com this past weekend at Sonoma Raceway.

That will come just over two months since the team’s 20,000-square foot race shop was heavily damaged by fire May 8.

The team has worked out of Penske Racing’s headquarters in nearby Mooresville, N.C., since the fire.

Four of the team’s 12 race cars were damaged or destroyed in the fire. The cause of the fire is still under investigation, crew chief Wally Rogers told SiriusXM NASCAR Radio on Sunday.

The team competes on a part-time schedule with McDowell as the driver of the No. 95 Ford Fusion.

“But we’re getting closer to being able to move back into our shop,’' McDowell told LastCar.com. “It won’t be like how it was. We lost a good portion of the shop that’s gonna take months and months to rebuild, but we have enough space up front to operate out of our shop again.

“Our plan is to move back in after Kentucky. It’s been a mess and Wally Rogers and all the guys have been working hard on that, too. And I’d say that’s where it’s affected us the most it’s just been a distraction. It’s taking a lot of our key people out of working on race cars and trying to get us back into a shop.”

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