Veteran racer John Andretti says he’d like to compete in both the Daytona and Indianapolis 500s in 2010 — as he has the past two years — but he won’t return to Front Row Motorsports this season for a similar schedule as last year. “I’m going to be in Daytona, in the Daytona 500, but with what team how all that will play out is still to be determined, though this week should get something finalized,” Andretti said Monday. “The focus is to do some other races, but the second major focus after the Daytona 500 is the Indy 500, similar to the same program I did in 2008, kinda free bird.” John Andretti, who in 1994 became the first driver to complete a same-day “double” in the Indy 500 and Coca-Cola 600 Cup race at Charlotte, said he hoped to possibly do some additional Cup races in a third Front Row car.
Travis Kvapil, the 2003 Truck Series champion, last week said on Sirius Speedway that he had a full-time Cup Series ride in 2010 with Front Row. The show’s Web site also reported, according to unnamed sources, that Kevin Conway would drive owner Jenkins’ second car. Conway has never started a Cup race but has 25 starts in the Nationwide Series and one in the Truck Series. Last month NASCAR announced a new qualifying format for the season-opening Budweiser Shootout event that kicks off Speedweeks at Daytona. Andretti is eligible, as the winner of Daytona’s 1997 mid-summer Cup race, and hopes to use it as a bargaining chip.
Andretti said he hoped to possibly do some additional Cup races for Jenkins in a third Front Row car. “It would have to be, because the other two guys are going to do all the races — though I don’t know all the details because I don’t need to know and I don’t like to talk out of school,” Andretti said. “I’d like to do a variety of races, because that keeps me happy, too. We’ll probably do some racing together at Front Row this year because Bob and I have talked about that, and he knows there are certain events I really want to run in. It’s not going to be a whole bunch of them because it’s not fair to do them cherry-picking through the whole year while someone else has to do all the legwork. It’s in the discussion stages and it’s got to work for them as well as me, but obviously the door is wide open.”(NASCAR.com)(1-6-2010)
