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."

Conway's car has full sponsorship from Extenze and Alteril. Richardson brings backing from Mahindra Tractors that also appears on his family's R3 Motorsports vehicles. Jenkins has some limited-race deals but continues to seek additional sponsorship. His cars will again carry several Yum Brands affiliated with his franchising group, Charter Foods, including Long John Silver's, Taco Bell and A&W.

In 2009, Jenkins made a deal with Earnhardt Ganassi Racing to use the owners' points accrued in 2008 by Dale Earnhardt Inc.'s No. 15, which weren't being used when DEI merged with Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates.

Andretti ran 34 races for Front Row and Tony Raines the two when Andretti competed in the 2009 Indianapolis 500. The team's Chevrolet never fell out of the top 35 in the owners' standings.

Jenkins switched to Ford in 2010 and that deal's paid immediate dividends. Jenkins said one of his cars would be in a wind tunnel for the first time on Wednesday.

"As a component of our support from Ford, we get a fixed number of hours a year in the wind tunnel, engineering support and simulation software," Jenkins said. "It's a lot of things that most small teams don't have access to, so for us it's just huge.

"I was so proud of what our guys accomplished last year on their own. We tried to create alliances the past two years but in neither case was it effective because they had their own stuff to do -- they just weren't that worried about our success. It just doesn't mesh the way that you hoped that it would.

"And we needed that. So [working with Ford] is going to take us from a car that had an average finish, I think, of 29th. I look for just the engineering support and wind tunnel time to move us up five or 10 positions because it gives us a chance to dial our cars in.

"We have a pull-down rig, but by going to three cars we've added some engineers and we'll be able to do some additional stuff, like suspension parts will be able to be developed in-house rather than going to someone else."

Kvapil will work with crew chief Steven Lane, who was a bonus from the deal with EGR and who engineered Andretti's 2009 success. Conway's crew chief is Peter Sospenzo, another veteran mechanic who came to Front Row late last season. Gilliland's crew chief is yet to be determined.

Gilliland, who won the pole position for the 2007 Daytona 500 driving a No. 38 Ford for Robert Yates Racing, was announced on Tuesday as the driver for BAM Racing's No. 49 Toyota at Daytona. After that he'll contest the majority of the season in Front Row's cars, reprising a role he had with Kvapil at Yates for the full 2008 season, when they finished 27th and 23rd in the standings, respectively.

They started 2009 contracted to Yates but were both ultimately released due to lack of sponsorship. Gilliland ran most of last season for TRG Motorsports' first-year team and made every race he attempted in their cars save the Watkins Glen road race. Kvapil ran a handful of early-season races for Yates and then had another handful of attempts late in the year for Front Row.

"It's going to be great to be back in a Ford with Roush/Yates engines and teammates with Travis and Kevin," Gilliland said. "Travis and I had a lot of good runs together in the past and I know that Front Row Motorsports has put a lot of efforts into their program during the offseason. I think we can surprise some people."

Richardson, 27, who made his Cup Series debut with an 18th-place finish last fall at Talladega for Tommy Baldwin Racing, will make three attempts in the No. 38, including Talladega's spring race and Daytona's July race.

Richardson has 46 career starts in the Nationwide Series and 24 career starts in the Truck Series. He's still seeking his first career top-10 finish after competing mostly with family-operated equipment.

"I'm looking forward to racing with Front Row Motorsports," Richardson Jr. said. "The team is giving me the opportunity to race in the Daytona 500 with Mahindra USA Tractors on board our No. 38. It's a great opportunity for us and we're hoping to make the most of it during Speedweeks and the other two races."

Jenkins said he would remain the listed owner of Front Row's No. 34 Nationwide team, which finished 12th in the drivers' standings with Raines. But Jenkins said his team would be operated by another organization after Front Row's manufacturer switch.

"I'm probably going to have to lease that out this year because of our alliance with Ford," Jenkins said. "Our Nationwide team is a Chevrolet team. First of all, we really want to focus on the Cup program but it would be a conflict to run Fords in one series and Chevrolets in the other.

"Because we have factory support from Ford, Front Row Motorsports will not be operating that race team."

Related:
• ExtenZe to sponsor Cup newcomer Conway, No. 37