Third Team Helping Front Row Motorsports Grow
STATESVILLE, N.C. (April 16, 2013) – They say two heads are better than one. If that’s the case, then three are even better. That’s the strength of Front Row Motorsports in 2013, with Josh Wise running full-time in the No. 35 MDS Transport Ford alongside teammates David Ragan and David Gilliland.
The 30-year-old driver will start his eighth Sprint Cup Series race of the season this weekend in Sunday’s STP 400 at Kansas Speedway. Since joining Front Row last season, Wise has been a valuable member of the team, providing added on-track feedback to his organization, and to his teammates, to help the three-car team improve and grow.
This weekend will be another new learning experience, with the Sprint Cup Series taking its new Gen-6 cars to the Kansas City, Kan., oval for the first time. It will be just the second time for Wise racing on the 1.5-mile oval in a Cup car.
Comments from MDS Transport team driver Josh Wise heading to Kansas:
“We had a pretty good run at Texas last week. I was pretty happy with the way our MDS Ford ran during Saturday night’s race. We weren’t out there threatening to take the win, but we know who we’re racing and who we’re trying to beat, and in that regard, it was a good day for us.
“We’re working well as a team, learning from our teammates on the ’34’ and ’38’ teams, giving them some good information to help them in return, and definitely making gains. With these new Gen-6 cars, everybody in the garage is still learning. So having three teams is a benefit to help try some things each week, where one car’s experiment can help the other two.
“When tracks like Kansas get repaved, they’re fast, first of all. So a lot of the performance goes into the team’s hands to some extent. Because when you have that kind of speed through a run, the aerodynamic attitude of the car and things like that are really important. And you don’t see a whole lot of tire fall-off. So it almost just comes down to how fast you can get your car to go through the run. Your aero attitude is not going to change much because speed doesn’t fall off, tires don’t fall off. So the guys will work really hard to just bring us really fast racecars.
“We’ll know after our first couple laps pretty much what we’ve got, and by the second run on the track you know pretty well what you need to be doing, how much grip the track’s got and things like that. Hopefully we’ll know pretty quick what we’ve got and what we need to work on to get in a good qualifying run Friday afternoon.”
About Front Row Motorsports:
Front Row Motorsports fields the No. 34 of David Ragan, the No. 38 of David Gilliland and the No. 35 of Josh Wise in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. The team is owned by Bob Jenkins and is headquartered just outside of Charlotte, N.C. In 2012, FRM was named to INC Magazine’s “INC 5000” list, recognizing the 5,000 fastest-growing private companies in the U.S., earning a rank of 800. Its partnership base is representative of more than $200 billion of the U.S. economy and includes organizations such as Ford Motor Company, CSX Transportation, Love’s Travel Stops, McCall Farms, Taco Bell, and Long John Silver’s. For sponsorship inquiries, contact Robin Johnson at rjohnson@frontrowmotorsports.com or Mike Laheta at mlaheta@frontrowmotorsports.com.
NEXT RACE:
STP 400, KANSAS SPEEDWAY
Sunday, April 21, 1pm ET (FOX, MRN)
