Todd Anderson who had been crew chief for the #93 BK Racing Toyota for driver Travis Kvapil since the teams inception, left the team after the Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway. Todd has now been named crew chief for the #35 Front Row Motorsports Ford and driver Josh Wise. Anderson will make his debut atop the pit box at the Quicken Loans 400 at Michigan International Speedway.
When asked about why the change occurred Friday morning in the garage area at Michigan, Anderson said, “Yeah it was a deal where I was beating myself up knowing we could run a lot better because the cars were running better and we have the motor issues of blowing up and stuff, and that was a big thing at the beginning of the year we said that we could be down on horsepower but we just couldn’t blow up, and when the chassis is exceeding the limitations of the motor, I just couldn’t handle it.”
Todd was referring the fact that BK Racing is building their engines in house this season. There have been several failures this season. When I pointed out that it could very frustrating as a crew chief, Todd said, “Oh God, especially when you know a lot of times . . . the one that gets me the most is Bristol when we ran up to 15th place about half-way and we had a really good car there, I think we had a legitimate top ten car there and blew up there, it kills me, because we worked so hard to get it there.”
Anderson said he was settling in quickly as he already knew several of the guys on the team. The Front Row Motorsports team is essentially on equal footing with the BK Racing Team. Both teams are smaller operations that are trying to secure their foothold in NASCAR’s top series. Considering the mega-teams that currently have a stranglehold on the top twenty – that can be a very tall task. The recent success of Furniture Row team is proof positive that it can be done, but can it be done without a partnership with one of the aforementioned mega-teams? The team did find success earlier this season at Talladega Superspeedway when David Ragan took the win, with teammate David Gilliland right behind him in second.
Anderson is hoping to bring his knowledge and experience to Front Row Motorsports and hopefully put the #35 team consistently in the top twenty.
