There’s quite a bit of changes in store for David Ragan and Front Row Motorsports in 2018.
Entering his 12th full-time Cup season and his fifth overall season with the team owned by Bob Jenkins, Ragan will have a new teammate in veteran Michael McDowell
When McDowell was announced as Ragan’s new teammate on Dec. 14, Front Row also announced an expanded technical alliance with fellow Ford team, Roush Fenway Racing.
Appearing on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio’s “Tradin’ Paint” on Wednesday, Ragan shared details on the alliance, his relationship with McDowell and his thoughts on some of the changes coming to all Cup teams.
On Front Row’s technical alliance, Ragan said Roush Fenway Racing will be responsible for building all of FRM’s speedway and road course cars.
“Ultimately, that’s going to allow our team to spend more time on our downforce cars,” Ragan said. “We feel like we’ve got really good people that can hang the bodies and do the fabrication work at Front Row. We’ve got the templates, the measurement tools. But it was really tough for us to build speedway cars for a month and then we switched everything over and built downforce cars and then right before the summer we had some road course cars. By having a stronger alliance with Roush racing it will help us concentrate on just downforce stuff. We’ve got 55, 60 employees that work really, really hard and put a lot of time and effort in our race program.”
The two-time Cup winner was asked how his team will be impacted by the recently announced changes to pit crews for next year. Teams will only be allowed five people over the pit wall during a stop, down from six.
Ragan said slow pit stops are inevitable and would provide benefits for drivers.
“I think we’ll just evolve again,” Ragan said. “These pit crews are so smart, they’re athletic. We have designated trainers and coaches. Front Row Motorsports is a little unique. We contract our pit crews out. So we have a pit crew from Stewart-Haas Racing that did both of our race cars last year ... Kind of working through our Ford relationship. We felt like it was very cost-effective and smart for us to let Stewart-Haas Racing handle our pit crews. ... They had the training facilities, they had the staff to really give us the best chance that we could’ve (had) on pit road.
“For me, I’m going to have a few more seconds to take a drink of water and maybe throw an icepack out the window because on the 11-second stops, you are flipping switches and holding the brake. You’re busy for that 10 or 11 seconds. As a driver, that’s something I haven’t really thought much about and I usually go over to our partners’ pit crew training facility in January and meet some of our new guys and kind of watch them a little bit.
”... I guarantee you when we get to Daytona, the teams are all going to approach it a little different. So by the time we all get to Atlanta and Las Vegas and Phoenix everybody’s going to be watching each other. It’s definitely going to slow the stops down some.”
CHARLOTTE, NC - JANUARY 24: (EDITOR’S NOTE: This image has been processed using digital filters.) Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series driver Michael McDowell poses for a photo during the NASCAR 2017 Media Tour at the Charlotte Convention Center on January 24, 2017 in Charlotte, North Carolina. (Photo by Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images)
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When Ragan arrives in Daytona in February it will be with McDowell as his teammate. The veteran driver replaces Landon Cassill. McDowell, 33, arrives at FRM after four seasons with Leavine Family Racing.
The 2018 season will be McDowell’s first in Cup with a teammate since his rookie year in 2008 with Michael Waltrip Racing.
Luckily, McDowell and Ragan have developed a close relationship away from the track in recent years.
“Our kids go to the same school, our wives our friends,” Ragan said. “We don’t live too far from each other. I think that does help when you have common interests outside of motorsports where you see each other. He actually stopped by my house this morning to pick up some things. I think that’s a really good thing and it’s healthy to have that relationship. But as far as on the track, I think teammates are so important.
“When I was at Roush Fenway Racing, the teammates I had really pushed me to do better and be smarter. When I filled in for Kyle Busch for a few races (in 2015), working with Denny (Hamlin) and Matt (Kenseth) and Carl (Edwards) and some of those guys at Joe Gibbs Racing, they push you to be better. They push you be more prepared going into a race weekend. Because you know you’re judged off of kind of what your team is doing.”
” ... Michael McDowell is a great road racer. That’s his background. I think he’s going to help me and push me to do better. I feel like I have an edge at some of the short tracks where I cut my teeth. I feel if we can help each other, it only makes our team better. Michael’s really in touch and engaged with our race cars. He can help us with the development of our cars through testing and through making laps on the simulator this offseason. We have a lot of tools we’ll be working through before we make out first lap in Daytona.”
