Front Row Motorsports eyes full season, hires Steve Lane as crew chief

By Bob Pockrass - Associate Editor

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Front Row Motorsports' John Andretti is currently 33rd in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series standings after five races this season. (Wayne Ebinger / NASCAR Scene)

Front Row Motorsports' John Andretti is 33rd in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series standings after five races this season.

Wayne Ebinger
NASCAR Scene

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Front Row Motorsports has hired Steve Lane from Earnhardt Ganassi Racing to be its crew chief and is still focused on running the entire season, team owner Bob Jenkins said.

Driver John Andretti is 33rd in driver points and the team is 33rd in owner points for Jenkins, whose team, prior to this year, had qualified for 34 of 135 Cup races it attempted from 2005 through 2008.

The team started 2009 locked into the first five races with the points from the Dale Earnhardt Inc. No. 15 car as part of an alliance with Earnhardt Ganassi Racing. That brought Lane and other EGR crewmen over to work with the team, and some have now become permanent employees.

“We’ve tried to fly under the radar screen and not create a lot of noise about what we’re doing,” Jenkins said Sunday at Bristol Motor Speedway. “I feel like we can stay locked in once we’re there. [EGR] ran Daytona. It was their operation. Since then, we’ve ran it, and John would have made every one of those races on time anyway. I feel good about that. I just don’t want to get to the point where we have to make it on time.”

Jenkins has attempted to compete in Cup events since 2005, a year when his team attempted all 36 races and made 13 Cup starts. Front Row made 13 more in running the full 2006 season but only three out of 29 attempts in 2007 and then five out of 24 attempts in 2008.

“Having done this first-five-races thing the past few years, I learned a valuable lesson,” Jenkins said. “What you do in those first five races really cements your future beyond that. … We’re focusing on how do we run well during the race, not so much as how do we get into the race.

“That’s been the biggest difference. Last year, from the time we unloaded, we were focusing on just trying to make the race. And once you make it, it’s then, how do we race? We could not make that transition.”

The team bought some cars from EGR but also has raced its own cars this year. It also has been using Pro Motors, except for the races at Daytona and Atlanta, where it used Earnhardt Childress Racing Technologies engines.

“When we started this deal, we did a technical alliance with them [at EGR] and shared information both ways,” Jenkins said. “We don’t get full-blown engineering support. We have our own folks to do that.

“But there has been information-sharing. I think it has helped us and also maybe has helped them. It gives them a chance to test some things at a lower risk [than] if they were doing it on the 1 [of Martin Truex Jr.] or 42 car [of Juan Pablo Montoya].”

Knowing that it was in the first five races, Front Row was able to secure sponsorship for four events from Window World. The team is currently unsponsored, but Jenkins hopes to have Window World back on the car.

“They won’t do all the races,” Jenkins said. “They could do as many as 10. We don’t know at this point. For sure, they’re going to do Richmond. Beyond that, we’re still working on stuff.”

The team’s Cup operation is based in Statesville, N.C., at Travis Carter’s shop. The Nationwide team, with Tony Raines behind the wheel, is in Denver, N.C.

“We’re pretty excited,” Jenkins said. “We think we’ve got a decent chance. We’ve worked real hard to put ourselves in this position. We’ll know more after Martinsville, but there probably is not a scenario where we don’t run the full [Cup] schedule.”

Andretti most likely won’t run the full schedule. He plans to compete in the Indianapolis 500 in May and probably will miss two events. Jenkins hasn’t named a driver for those races, but Raines could step into the seat, he said.

Raines is competing this weekend at Martinsville in a second Front Row car because the Nationwide Series is off, but that car likely won’t run much again this year, Jenkins said.

Jenkins said that he has continued the Cup team because he’s “just passionate about it” and is seeing that passion for racing reap rewards with a team currently in the top 35.

“You would not believe the chemistry with this group,” Jenkins said. “It’s such a group of overachievers, plus the talent base is there. They have the talent and the skill. … A lot of people think we would be happy to be a top-35 car, but Steve Lane and these guys would like to be a top-20 car. Their goals are higher than just being part of the top 35.”

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Comments

1 response to "Front Row Motorsports eyes full season, hires Steve Lane as crew chief".

1

jerry swiatek said:
Mar 25, 2009 at 5:44 PM
Ok here's a guy that is the nicest guy in the world but can"t drive like a Kyle
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