HAMPTON, Ga. – Mario Gosselin, former ARCA Menards Series driver and now DGM Racing team owner, was helping his pit team load a car into the top of the transporter after Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series race evening (March 19) at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

When Front stretch caught up with the veteran racer, the 50-year-old jumped off a five-foot-tall cargo loader and rushed into the garage with the biggest smile of anyone.

The car he was loading was Mason Massey’s #91 Chevy. That car and Kyle Weatherman’s No. 92 had just scored the team’s first double top 10 in over a year, with Massey finishing sixth and Weatherman eighth.

@MarioGosselin talk about a double top ten for @dgm_racing_ and what that means for the underdog team. Rented @KyleWeatherman and @Mason_Massey for their shopping tonight. #NASCAR #Nelly250 pic.twitter.com/JN9jhvQwWK

— Dalton Hopkins (@PitLaneLT) March 20, 2022

“We’re a 20th-place team in terms of where we should be,” Gosselin said. Front stretch. “Everyone works their guts. We put in a lot of hours. Who would have thought that a small team from Lake Wales could come to Atlanta and get two top 10 finishes?

The small team from Lake Wales, Florida has just 26 top 10 finishes in its eight-year history, including 447 total starts. Alex Labbe, in the team’s third outing on Saturday, finished 19th, placing all three cars in the top 20 for the first time this season.

It was the first career top 10 in the series for Massey, a Georgia native. It was also almost his first top five, as he was one spot off sixth place.

“It definitely feels like a win,” Massey said. Front stretch. “I feel a bit emotional right now. We have gone through so much effort to get to this point.

A feeling @Mason_Massey talks about an underdog P6 finish and what it means for @dgm_racing_ 👇#NASCAR #Nelly250 pic.twitter.com/FL1Sz4aX5O

— Dalton Hopkins (@PitLaneLT) March 20, 2022

For Weatherman, it was only his second career top 10. His last was almost two years ago.

“Two cars in the top 10, that’s unbelievable,” Weatherman said. Front stretch. “This sport is a momentum-based sport. These guys worked hard. Seeing results is very cool.

@KyleWeatherman joined the @dgm_racing_ crew after a double top ten for the team. He talks about it here 👇#NASCAR #Nelly250 pic.twitter.com/5bAhpyjg1O

— Dalton Hopkins (@PitLaneLT) March 20, 2022

Atlanta recently reconfigured its 1.5-mile oval into a steeper and narrower superspeedway-like track. In fact, its new side-by-side design racing product resembles Talladega Superspeedway, which happens to be where DGM won its last double top 10 in 2020.

Change meant chaos, and by the end of the night there was plenty of it – but not until the end.

There were no warnings for the incidents during the first two stages of the race, which meant the typical Xfinity Series players were racing ahead. Strong teams such as JR Motorsports, Joe Gibbs Racing, Kaulig Racing and Richard Childress Racing occupied most of the top 10 throughout the event.

But with 60 laps to go in the final stage, a multi-car crash broke out. Then another did, and another.

With the lead cars destroyed and Atlanta’s attrition rate increasing, slowly but surely the DGM cars rose through the ranks.

With so many unknowns about Atlanta’s new setup and no prior ratings to use, even the most powerful teams scrambled to find something in their setups that might work.

“It’s crazy. It’s probably the craziest track I’ve raced on,” Massey said of the reconfiguration. “The drafting over a mile and a half is crazy.”

Gosselin, however, knew exactly what to do. He said that instead of using a traditional superspeedway setup like many other teams, he looked back to a Michigan International Speedway setup that was used after the last 2-mile repave.

Whatever he saw there, he liked it and he put it in the three Chevrolet DGMs on Saturday night.

It worked well, because by the end of the night, combined with the help of the race’s high attrition rate, Massey and Weatherman were in the top 10 shell.

With another multi-car accident and a double overtime attempt, both cars found themselves in the top 10.

Retweet to congratulate Ty Gibbs on his NASCAR Xfinity Series Overtime win at Atlanta Motor Speedway!@TyGibbs_ | @JoeGibbsRacing pic.twitter.com/OnpcAnszoV

— FOX: NASCAR (@NASCARONFOX) March 20, 2022

As Ty Gibbs celebrated at the finish line in Atlanta and the JGR team celebrated in victory lane, DGM Racing created its own victory lane on pit road, surrounded by friends and of family.

They hadn’t won, but they really wanted to.

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