Long announced he would merge his No. 46 team with the McGlynn Racing team to run in 2005. Although he drove only the No. 00 from McGlynn, Long ran 9 races that year, and had a career-best qualifying effort of 20th at Atlanta. Unfortunately, sponsors wanted 1990 Daytona 500 winner Derrike Cope to drive the car, which forced McGlynn to release Long. Long closed out the year running at Homestead-Miami Speedway in a personally owned chassis originally purchased from Petty Enterprises. The car was prepared in Stan Hover's shop with mostly volunteers, and a leased motor from Bill Davis Racing was dropped into the car. Unfortunately, a crash in qualifying ended his weekend prematurely. That season Long was also announced as a driver for a new team, Victory Motorsports, owned by Terance Mathis, but the team never ran.