Front Row Motorsports plans full season, hires crew chief:
March 24, 2009 at 12:00 AM
Front Row Motorsports plans full season, hires crew chief: 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. #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.”Weve tried to fly under the radar screen and not create a lot of noise about what were doing,” Jenkins said Sunday at Bristol Motor Speedway.”I feel like we can stay locked in once were there. [EGR] ran Daytona. It was their operation. Since then, weve ran it, and John would have made every one of those races on time anyway. I feel good about that. I just dont want to get to the point where we have to make it on time.” 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 dont 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 wont do all the races,” Jenkins said.”They could do as many as 10. We dont know at this point. For sure, theyre going to do Richmond. Beyond that, were still working on stuff.” The teams Cup operation is based in Statesville, N.C., at Travis Carters shop. The Nationwide team, with Tony Raines behind the wheel, is in Denver, N.C. Andretti most likely wont run the full schedule. He plans to compete in the Indianapolis 500 in May and probably will miss two events. Jenkins hasnt 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 [#37] car because the Nationwide Series is off, but that car likely wont run much again this year, Jenkins said.(SceneDaily)(3-24-2009)
