Andretti hooks up with FRM for 500, Shootout

John Andretti will drive the No. 34 Front Row Motorsports Ford as one of three entries from the newly expanded team in the 2010 Daytona 500.

Andretti will also race in the Budweiser Shootout. Andretti's eligible for the season-opening special event due to winning Daytona's 1997 mid-summer Cup race, the Pepsi 400.

Travis Kvapil, who's signed to wheel the No. 34 the rest of the season, will drive FRM's No. 37 at Daytona in place of rookie Kevin Conway, who NASCAR wouldn't approve to race on the 2.5-mile superspeedway.

Robert Richardson Jr. will drive the team's third full-time car, the No. 38. A Nationwide Series regular, Richardson will drive the season's first three restrictor-plate races for FRM.

Kvapil will switch to the No. 34 at Fontana the second week of the season; Conway will drive the No. 37; and David Gilliland will step into the No. 38, which he'll drive in the majority of this season's races.

Team owner Bob Jenkins said Andretti, who secured the No. 34's locked-in spot in the top 35 to start this season in the 34 races he ran for FRM in 2009, will also do a handful of other races this season in the No. 38.

If Jenkins can negotiate NASCAR-approved agreements for the two remaining sets of unused 2009 Sprint Cup Series owners' points, his second and third cars also will be guaranteed starters for the season's first five races, escaping Daytona's harrowing qualifying format.

Roush Fenway Racing was allowed to sell the assets and points of its 22nd-place No. 26 team to the newly formed Latitude 43 Motorsports, which will field a No. 26 Ford for Boris Said at Daytona. Richard Childress Racing formed an agreement with Furniture Row Racing that included the 21st-place points garnered last season by RCR's No. 07.

The remaining owners' points were accrued last season by Richard Petty Motorsports' No. 44 (24th in points) and Hall of Fame Racing's No. 96 team (31st).