NASCAR isn't Michael Jordan's first dance with motor racing
Motorcycle enthusiast previously owned an AMA Pro Superbike team
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Michael Jordan is going racing in NASCAR next year, but it won’t be the first time the NBA legend has hit the track.
Jordan, who Forbes says has a net worth of $1.6 billion, is teaming up with NASCAR star Denny Hamlin to field a new single-car team starting in 2021 with driver Bubba Wallace behind the wheel.
University North Carolina graduate and Carolina Hornets owner Jordan said he is a lifelong NASCAR fan, and the Jordan Brand has sponsored Hamlin since 2011, when His Airness was involved in a very different type of motorsport.
Brett McCormick rode for Michael Jordan Motorsports during the 2010 AMA season. (Brian Cleary/Getty Images)
Jordan is also a motorcycle enthusiast and in 2004 he launched the Michael Jordan Motorsports Racing Team to compete as an owner in the AMA Pro Superbike series.
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Michael Jordan Motorsports' last season in AMA was 2013 (Michael Jordan Motorsports)
The team finished 35th in the Supersport class and 23rd in the Superstock on Yamaha bikes that year, but a switch to Suzuki helped them move up to 8th and 3rd in 2005, according to MotoPinas.com. Its best result was when Superbike rider Jake Zemke came third in points during the 2010 season.
The team continued through the 2013 season when Roger Hayden finished fourth, but lost the National Guard as its main sponsor and pulled out of the series with plans to enter the international MotoGP series the following year. However, it couldn’t make the finances of the more ambitious and expensive effort work and ended its operations altogether.