Two NASCAR drivers are specifically linked to Front Row Motorsports in the Cup Series. Which drivers could sign with Front Row Motorsports?
[autotag]Front Row Motorsports[/autotag] will have at least two new drivers for its NASCAR Cup Series program in 2025. Last week, Front Row Motorsports announced that it would expand to a three-car team after acquiring a charter believed to be from Stewart-Haas Racing. So, which two drivers could join Todd Gilliland, who recently signed a multi-year extension with the team?
According to The Athletic’s Jordan Bianchi, Cole Custer and Riley Herbst are two candidates for an expanded Front Row Motorsports program in 2025. Custer was recently linked to Front Row Motorsports as Michael McDowell’s potential replacement, while Herbst has run several races with the Cup Series organization since the start of the 2023 season.
With three cars in the Cup Series program, Custer and Herbst could join Gilliland to form a strong trio of drivers. Front Row Motorsports recently increased its relationship with Ford to a Tier 1 status, so the performances should improve. Custer and Herbst could be along for the ride, which would represent two good options for Front Row Motorsports.
Front Row Motorsports will once again be a three-car NASCAR Cup Series operation in 2025 after buying a third charter. The organization did not reveal whom they bought the charter from for the third car. However, the announcement comes a day after …
Front Row Motorsports will once again be a three-car NASCAR Cup Series operation in 2025 after buying a third charter.
The organization did not reveal whom they bought the charter from for the third car. However, the announcement comes a day after Stewart-Haas Racing announced it was closing its NASCAR operation at season’s end.
Front Row Motorsports will continue to field Ford Mustang Dark Horse entries. There were no announcements about the driver lineup.
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“We have a very positive outlook on the future of NASCAR and as the sport plans for success, so do we,” said team owner Bob Jenkins. “Today that means having a plan for expanding back to three cars in the NASCAR Cup Series. I always have the vision to continue to grow and improve our team and that commitment and desire never changes. I am committed to the sport and its passionate fans and partners.”
Michael McDowell and Todd Gilliland currently compete under the Front Row banner. McDowell, however, is heading to Spire Motorsports in 2025. Gilliland is in his third season with the organization.
Front Row Motorsports last fielded three full-time entries in 2019. McDowell, John Hunter Nemechek, and Matt Tifft were the drivers. The third entry has been run in select races in the last few seasons.
The growth of the organization for 2025 follows the Tier-1 status it gained with Ford this season. Front Row Motorsports also has a technical alliance with Team Penske.
“It is good to get the news out now as we have a lot of work to do to prepare a new team,” said general manager Jerry Freeze. “All of us on the leadership team will be working through that, obtaining the parts and pieces needed for the new team. And, most importantly, adding to the dedicated and talented staff and culture that exists today within our organization.
“Starting a new team from scratch is always a challenge, but with the opportunities in front of us, the talent we have in our leadership, and a bit of a runway to get there, I am confident that we can produce three competitive programs out of the box for the 2025 season. We haven’t lost sight of what our goals for 2024 are — to get our teams into the playoffs for both series. If we can keep up the speed on track and have a little bit of luck to come our way, we can achieve our objectives.”
Front Row Motorsports will also continue to field an entry in the Craftsman Truck Series next season.
Front Row Motorsports is expected to buy a NASCAR charter from Stewart-Haas Racing for the 2025 Cup Series season.
[autotag]Front Row Motorsports[/autotag] is rising after increasing its relationship with Ford to a Tier 1 status. The NASCAR team has previously been labeled as a “leading candidate” to acquire a charter from Stewart-Haas Racing. However, Front Row Motorsports appears to be on the verge of turning a third charter into reality.
Front Row Motorsports must also replace Michael McDowell, who will replace Zane Smith in the No. 71 car at Spire Motorsports next season. Plenty of drivers will be available, such as every driver at Stewart-Haas Racing, that make sense. Either way, it will be fascinating to see what happens with Front Row Motorsports, which should be a three-car team in 2025.
Front Row Motorsports is a “leading candidate” to buy a charter from Stewart-Haas Racing before the 2025 NASCAR season.
[autotag]Front Row Motorsports[/autotag] must add at least one new driver to its NASCAR Cup Series lineup in 2025. It was recently announced that Michael McDowell would leave the organization for Spire Motorsports, replacing Zane Smith in the No. 71 car. However, Front Row Motorsports may have even more open entries in 2025.
Stewart-Haas Racing will likely sell all four NASCAR charters ahead of the 2025 Cup Series season, meaning it will no longer exist. Front Row Motorsports would benefit from Stewart-Haas Racing selling its chartres, while Ford loses a few seats. It will be interesting to see who Front Row Motorsports considers for two seats if they purchase a NASCAR charter.
Michael McDowell and Front Row Motorsports announced Wednesday that McDowell will not return to the organization next season. “For the last seven years, I’ve been fortunate to call Front Row Motorsports ‘home,'” McDowell started in a post on X. …
Michael McDowell and Front Row Motorsports announced Wednesday that McDowell will not return to the organization next season.
“For the last seven years, I’ve been fortunate to call Front Row Motorsports ‘home,’” McDowell started in a post on X. “Together, we’ve challenged the giants of NASCAR, leaving a mark on the sport that I’m proud to have been a part of. Over half of my NASCAR Cup Series starts have been made over the FRM banner, and I’m thankful for each and every one of them. With that being said, my family and I have made the bittersweet decision that it’s time for us to embark on the next chapter of our motorsports journey, making 2024 my final season as the driver of the No. 34 Ford Mustang Dark Horse for Front Row Motorsports.
“To FRM’s loyal and dedicated fan base, I’m grateful for your messages of encouragement and support during my tenure with the team — it’s been an awesome ride. To the incredible partners that I’ve been privileged to work with, thank you for trusting me to represent each of your companies, both on and off the racetrack. I wish you all nothing but success for many years to come.
“Lastly, to Bob Jenkins, Jerry Freeze, and all of the men and women at Front Row Motorsports, Ford Performance, and Roush Yates Engines, thank you for your unwavering support over the last seven years and for allowing me to live out a dream of winning not only the Daytona 500, but the Brickyard as well. I’m so proud of what we’ve been able to accomplish together and I’m forever grateful for the opportunity.”
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McDowell has two Cup Series victories, both of which have come with Front Row Motorsports. He won the Daytona 500 in 2021 and on the Indianapolis road course last season. The victory at Indianapolis locked McDowell into the postseason and he finished a career-best 15th in the championship standings.
The now 39-year-old joined Front Row Motorsports in 2018.
“Rest assured, there’s still a lot of racing left this season, and I’m fully committed to doing whatever it takes to get FRM another win and another playoff berth,” McDowell’s post continued. “We’re not slowing down until the checkered flag flies in Phoenix. I look forward to continue driving for many years to come and can’t wait to share my future plans with you all soon.”
Front Row Motorsport said McDowell was “an important part” of the organization’s growth. McDowell has the most wins, starts, and top-five finishes of any driver for the organization.
“We thank Michael for all he has done during his time as a driver at Front Row Motorsports,” team owner Bob Jenkins said. “His 2021 Daytona 500 victory, a dominant win at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and two appearances in the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs set a new standard for our organization. He became the leader of his team and the organization. Outside the car, he was the model for a driver we want to represent us and our partners.
“We’re sad to see Michael leave, but wish him, Jami and his family nothing but the best as he moves on to another chapter of what is already an incredible racing career.”
Michael McDowell announced that he won’t return to the No. 34 car Front Row Motorsports in the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season.
[autotag]Michael McDowell[/autotag]’s successful run at [autotag]Front Row Motorsports[/autotag] is ending. On Wednesday morning, McDowell announced that he will not return to the No. 34 car for Front Row Motorsports after the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series season. As said in his announcement, the driver of the No. 34 car plans on racing for “many” years to come.
McDowell won his first career Cup Series race with Front Row Motorsports when he became a Daytona 500 champion in 2021. It was his first time winning a race, which couldn’t have happened at a more significant event. Then, McDowell backed up that victory by beating Chase Elliott on pure speed at the Indianapolis Road Course in 2023.
The 39-year-old driver has been with Front Row Motorsports since the 2018 season, which means he will spend seven years with the organization. In 2024, McDowell has three top-10 finishes and sits 26th in the point standings. It might be shocking news for McDowell to make this decision, but he will surely land on his feet somewhere else.
Michael McDowell was “heartbroken” leaving Sunday’s race at Talladega Superspeedway empty-handed after leading the field off Turn 4 on the final lap. McDowell spun and crashed in the tri-oval off the front bumper of Brad Keselowski coming to the …
Michael McDowell was “heartbroken” leaving Sunday’s race at Talladega Superspeedway empty-handed after leading the field off Turn 4 on the final lap.
McDowell spun and crashed in the tri-oval off the front bumper of Brad Keselowski coming to the checkered flag. After blocking Keselowski’s run to the outside off Turn 4, the Front Row Motorsports driver went for the second block when the No. 6 dove back to the left toward the yellow line. It was a little too late, and Keselowski got into the back of McDowell, which triggered a multi-car wreck after McDowell spun across the track in front of the field.
Tyler Reddick missed the spinning No. 34 and passed the No. 6 for the race win. Keselowski finished second. McDowell’s damaged car, with its front end torn off, came to rest in the grass yards from the finish line, and he was credited with finishing 31st.
“Just heartbroken, man,” McDowell said. “I pull down a little bit sooner and we win the race. But that’s racing and it’s tough to get to victory lane, and we were close. We’ll be motivated by it. I’m a student of the game; I’m going to go back and watch and study and learn and figure out what I could have done differently and better, and work with my spotter and try to figure it out.
“But I’m super disappointed. I hate that other people that got caught up in my mess. I’m proud of our effort, our speed and our race team. We’ll see what happens.”
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McDowell thought he was going to be clear when pulling down in front of Keselowski, and in the moment didn’t think it was a late block. It was not an “all or nothing” moment for him coming to the checkered flag, and he had no intention of starting a wreck. Keselowski “barely” made contact to send McDowell spinning.
“I hate it because we had a good chance of getting a Dark Horse Mustang in victory lane; we definitely had the speed,” McDowell said. “But on the flip side of that, it’s the last lap at Talladega and you’re going for a win, and so I’ll learn from it, go back and watch it, and see what I could have done differently and better. But Brad’s a tough guy to beat here. He knows what to do on the last lap; he’s won [six] times here, and he did everything right.
“He drug off me, drug back and I drug back to him to try to make sure he didn’t have too big of a run, and then he got connected there with [Gragson] and just surged right before I pulled down. You’re dealing with inches the whole time, and I miscalculated. I apologize to Brad and everybody that was behind that got collected in that. It’s unfortunate. We had such a fast Love’s Travel Stop Ford Mustang. I’m proud of everybody at Front Row. We had so much speed, having both cars up there and controlling the race. We needed a win, and we were going for it.”
McDowell started from the pole in the GEICO 500 and led a race-high 36 laps.
Michael McDowell and Front Row Motorsports have had a fast Ford Mustang Dark Horse early in the NASCAR Cup Series season, but they’re still working to put together consistent performances and results. “I think the speed has been great; I think our …
Michael McDowell and Front Row Motorsports have had a fast Ford Mustang Dark Horse early in the NASCAR Cup Series season, but they’re still working to put together consistent performances and results.
“I think the speed has been great; I think our execution just hasn’t been very good,” McDowell said at Phoenix Raceway. “And that’s on me. Last week we didn’t execute well, [but] less on me last week. The good news is we have speed, and speed makes up for a lot of things. We’ve just got to keep that speed up throughout the year and then clean up some of the things that we’ve had troubles with and I think we’ll be in a good spot to contend for wins.”
No team wants to be searching for speed. It’s far easier to be fighting for finishes.
McDowell has started no worse than 12th in the first three races. After earning a front-row starting spot in the Daytona 500, McDowell earned his first career pole at Atlanta Motor Speedway. An eighth-place finish at Atlanta is his best finish of the season; his average finish is 23rd going into Sunday’s race in his home state.
“I think that’s the good thing — we’re pretty close with everything,” McDowell said. “We just have a few little areas to clean up and I think we’ll be able to put ourselves in a better position, especially as we get into the summer months.”
The 39-year-old McDowell is amid a career breakout. Since NASCAR introduced its Next Gen car in 2022, McDowell has enjoyed career numbers by quickly adapting to its feel and driving characteristics. He’s earned 21 top-10 finishes driving the Next Gen car, which is more than he had in his previous 14 seasons as a Cup Series driver (17).
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Front Row Motorsports is primed for even more success going forward with a new alliance with Team Penske. The technical partnership gives the small organization access to more information, like engineering support, but McDowell stressed it will take time for that to truly show results.
“Being able to lean on them more on that technical side for sure will help us to make better game day decisions and changes,” he said. “But all that, like I’ve been talking about, is going to take a process of being able to go through the information, understand it and then apply it, obviously. It’s still early, but I feel like…this week we made really big gains at home, at the shop, on how well we were able to utilize the information. We’re making gains, and I think it’ll get better and better every week.”
The next step for McDowell is turning their existing speed into top-five speed. It’s there where wins will come.
“Somewhere you’re going to get it right, you’re going to execute, get it all right, and you’re going to win a race,” McDowell said. “And winning a race, there’s such an emphasis on that in our series because it gets you in the playoffs and all the things it does. So, for me, it’s more about having those days of top-five speed than it is having top-15 speed throughout the entire year, if that makes sense.
“I think they go together, for sure, but I think just having more of that top-five speed is what’s going to allow us to contend for more wins.
Todd Gilliland believes the speed his Front Row Motorsports team has shown the first few weeks of the NASCAR season is a sign of things to come regardless of the racetrack. “I think we have a lot of new exciting partnerships, whether it’s the Tier 1 …
Todd Gilliland believes the speed his Front Row Motorsports team has shown the first few weeks of the NASCAR season is a sign of things to come regardless of the racetrack.
“I think we have a lot of new exciting partnerships, whether it’s the Tier 1 program with Ford or our new alliance with Team Penske,” Gilliland said this week. “I think all of that stuff has been helping us, pointing our team in the right direction to make these decisions, but at the same time, I think it’s even past the speed of it. It’s the speed plus how good my car drove, even at Daytona.”
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Gilliland not only led laps but could put his No. 38 Ford in front of different lanes and take pushes in the Daytona 500. He led 16 laps but finished 35th after being involved in the lap 191 multi-car crash.
A week later, Gilliland started a career-best fourth at Atlanta Motor Speedway and was the class of the field. Gilliland led a race-high 58 laps. Again, however, the finish (26th place) did not indicate the team’s performance and speed, as Gilliland was caught in an incident that damaged the car.
In the past, Gilliland’s team had to pick between either having a car that drove well or had speed. In the first two weeks of the 2024 season, the No. 38 Ford Mustang Dark Horse has had both.
“Let’s say we wanted to go qualify really well at Atlanta — we would probably have had to give up quite a bit of handling, so, to me, there’s more layers to it,” Gilliland said. “I’m hopeful that we’re going to show more speed here at (Las) Vegas, but on the same foot, I think we finished 28th and 31st there last year, so we have tons to improve on. But I’m really excited and very hopeful that this weekend will at least be a couple of steps in the right direction.”
The speed, specifically, is “like I’ve never had before in the Cup Series,” said Gilliland. With 74 laps led through the first two weeks, Gilliland has already set a new single-season mark for himself. He didn’t lead a single lap in 2023.
Front Row Motorsports teammates Todd Gilliland (left) and Michael McDowell are liking what they’ve been seeing this year. Motorsport Images
Gilliland and teammate Michael McDowell ran at the front in the Daytona 500 and Atlanta. For the 23-year-old Gilliland, now in his third year as a Cup Series driver, running at the front with some of the best in the series has been “awesome.”
“As still a youngerish guy that is still trying to find my way and make a name for myself, racing against the best of the best is just a huge confidence booster for myself,” Gilliland said. “I think I can do it and expect to be able to run well in those positions, but you never know what the other guys or the industry is going to think of yourself when you’re up there.
“So, for me, it’s been really awesome, just have to put those experiences in the memory bank. This is a huge confidence sport.”
The 1.5-mile Las Vegas Motor Speedway is the season’s first intermediate racetrack, making it the first chance for Cup Series teams to get an idea of where they stack up. Will Gilliland and the Fords be just as fast when not on a superspeedway? Gilliland will need to draw on all the confidence he has in his car and team to hold it nearly wide-open right from the start of the race.
“I really think the expectation of our team this year, even if it’s through the first two races, we’ve seen the potential of what we can do at these types of racetracks, and that needs to be the expectation going forward,” Gilliland said. “It’s confidence-inducing for me as well as my whole team.”
Michael McDowell and Joey Logano have flip-flopped starting positions from a week ago with McDowell earning his first career NASCAR Cup Series pole Saturday at Atlanta Motor Speedway. The Front Row Motorsports driver went to the top of the …
Michael McDowell and Joey Logano have flip-flopped starting positions from a week ago with McDowell earning his first career NASCAR Cup Series pole Saturday at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
The Front Row Motorsports driver went to the top of the leaderboard in single-car qualifying at 178.844mph (30.999s). He was the final competitor to get on track in the final round of qualifying after setting the pace in the first round.
McDowell’s first pole comes in his 467th start.
“That’s awesome,” McDowell said. “I’m just really proud of all the men and women at Front Row Motorsports — two weeks in a row we’ve sat on the front row. We’ve got a really fast Benebone Ford Mustang. That was a good lap but it really comes down to team and execution and they’ve done a really good job.
“We need to back that up with a good result tomorrow, but I’m really proud of everybody at Front Row. It’s a big effort for us; got both cars in the top five, which is awesome.”
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Logano, who bested McDowell last weekend for the pole in the Daytona 500, will start second and is the defending race winner at Atlanta. His fastest lap was 178.424mph
Kyle Busch qualified third (178.235mph), Todd Gilliland fourth (178.080mph), Kyle Larson fifth (177.829mph), Ryan Blaney sixth (177.658mph) and Chris Buescher seventh (177.176mph).
Austin Cindric qualified eighth (177.147mph), Chase Briscoe ninth (177.125mph) and Austin Dillon completed the top 10 (177.102mph).
There were seven Ford drivers who advanced into the final round of qualifying. The other three drivers were from the Chevrolet camp.
Daytona 500 champion William Byron qualified 11th with a lap of 176.853mph.
There are 37 drivers qualified for the Ambetter 400. Erik Jones ended up last at 164.554mph after fighting to keep the car from spinning in Turns 3 and 4 in the first round of qualifying.
Saturday’s session was the only on-track activity for the Cup Series prior to the green flag just after 3 p.m. ET Sunday.
