Michael McDowell will replace Landon Cassill at Front Row Motorsports
Front Row Motorsports has officially found its second driver.
The team said Thursday that Michael McDowell would drive the No. 34 car in 2018. McDowell will replace Landon Cassill and team with David Ragan.
McDowell drove the No. 95 car for Leavine Family Racing in 2017. He’s being replaced there by Kasey Kahne.
“Since I first drove for [FRM owner Bob Jenkins] at Watkins Glen, we’ve kept in touch and have felt like there might be an opportunity to work together again, and the timing worked out perfectly,” McDowell said in a statement. “It’s been a while since I’ve had a teammate, so I’m really looking forward to working with David, whom I’ve become pretty good friends with over the years. As a team now, we go into the season knowing we have five or six races that put us in position to get a win and earn a spot in the playoffs.”
McDowell finished 26th in the standings in 2017 with one top-10 finish. That was five spots better than Cassill.
The team also said it will have an “enhanced” partnership with manufacturer Ford. There’s one fewer Ford team slated for 2018 with the departure of Richard Petty Motorsports to Chevrolet in an alliance with Richard Childress Racing.
“Ford has been a great partner for us for the past eight seasons, and we’ve agreed to work together to step up our program quite a bit,” Jenkins said. “We’ve got a lot vested in our partnership – relationships, knowledge, data – that we’re going to build on to make improvements both in the shop and at the track.”
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Nick Bromberg is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at nickbromberg@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
