Front Row expands from one to three in Cup Series

Front Row Motorsports, who maintained a guaranteed Cup starting spot all last season with a single team, hopes to run three full-time Fords this year, including a reunion of former Yates Racing teammates Travis Kvapil and David Gilliland.

Bob Jenkins, who was already planning to run a No. 34 car for 2003 Truck Series champion Kvapil and a No. 37 for rookie of the year candidate Kevin Conway, announced Tuesday a third full-time Ford, a No. 38 that will be split between Gilliland, Robert Richardson Jr., who will attempt the Daytona 500, and possibly John Andretti, who was Front Row's full-time driver last season.

Clockwise from top-left: Kevin Conway, Travis Kvapil, David Gilliland, Robert Richardson Jr.

Only one Front Row team is currently guaranteed a starting position at Daytona. Jenkins' next hurdle is figuring out who'll drive that car, as Conway won't be approved to compete in the Daytona 500. Conway's NASCAR national series career includes 25 starts in the Nationwide series and one in the Truck Series -- last fall at Phoenix -- but none at either Daytona or Talladega.

At least two sets of owners' points that were accrued by one team that raced Fords --Yates -- and another that's switched to Fords -- Richard Petty Motorsports -- appear to be in play.

"All three of our teams should be in pretty good shape," Jenkins said. "But it'll be another two or three days before we know."

Jenkins was more definite about Conway's status.

"I don't think it's going to happen [because] they've [NASCAR] been pretty clear that he won't be approved for Daytona," Jenkins said. "So we have another plan in place, but it's all part of the locked-in number situation."

Several weeks ago Andretti, who has a guaranteed spot in the Budweiser Shootout, said he'd been talking to Jenkins about doing a certain number of 2010 races and Jenkins confirmed that.

"John and I have been working real hard all winter," Jenkins said. "The average fan out there thinks we cut him loose or he cut us loose, whatever. But that's just not the case and we want him to be a part of our plans for 2010, but it would be on a pretty limited basis.

"John may be talking to some other folks, too, because he's not under contract to us, but we talked about doing a handful of races. I feel pretty indebted to him for what he did for us last year and I want him to do certain things on his own terms.

"We've committed a certain number of races to [Gilliland], Robbie Richardson's going to be in that [No. 38] car for three races and there'll be a few races left for John." (Continued)