Dave Vinesett, a seasoned gasman with over a decade of experience in the NASCAR National Series, has officially retired from the sport after Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series season finale at Phoenix Raceway.
Alpha Prime Racing, the team Vinesett pitted for this season, confirmed his retirement in a post shared to X on Monday.
In a interview, team owner Martins spoke fondly of Vinesett, who had been a vital part of Alpha Prime Racing’s over-the-wall crew for the past couple of seasons. “Big guy with a really big heart,” Martins said of Vinesett.
Vinesett joined Alpha Prime Racing as a contractor through The Pickle Gang, an independent pit crew development and staffing business. From the moment he joined the Alpha Prime roster, Vinesett had made it clear that this team would be the one he retired with.
Martins explained, “You gotta understand a lot of our pit crew guys are really independent guys and girls for that matter where they’re not necessarily affiliated with a Cup team. They’re all kind of independent contractors that go train at Rev Racing, but it’s a company organized by Jeremy Turner, and it’s very independent. They’re not affiliated with one of the big pit schools or any of that. They kind of made a decision to kind of bet on themselves, and they’re not necessarily pitting in the Cup series. Maybe they are, maybe they’re not. But really, Alpha Prime became like the biggest series for a lot of those guys. And for Dave, who had pitted in the Cup series and had done it at that level, really, this was, we talked about it when he first came over here with us, that this was kind of gonna be his home until he retired.”
Despite dealing with knee injuries over the course of his pit crew career, Vinesett knew that his time as a veteran crew member was limited. However, he became a leader within the team as he neared the end of his career.
Martins explained, “This really became a focus for him. Just trying to be on a competitive organization for the last few years of his career, and we were able to hopefully make that happen at times, you know, this year. But we had such an interesting mix where Dave kind of became the veteran of a group of kind of some younger pit crew members and, and kind of various cast-offs really, if you think about it. The people that aren’t just directly affiliated with a cup program that are independent people, and you kind of had a mixed match of personalities and people together, and Dave really became a veteran leader for those groups. [He was] just so well respected throughout the entire garage. So many young pit crew people met Dave and know Dave. [Dave has a] terrific attitude. I mean, just 10 out of 10 attitude all the time, positive and competitive. And a guy that we’re gonna miss a whole lot. His demeanor at the track was something always that we would look forward to seeing him every, every week he made the weekend better.”
As for what’s next for Vinesett, Martins shared that the longtime crew member has joked about wanting to remain involved with Alpha Prime Racing in some capacity in the future. “I feel like it was a beneficial thing for both sides of us, and this was his home for a couple of years on the weekends with us, and we absolutely loved having him.”
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