May 14th, 2010 
Journo As Jimmie Johnson and Kevin Harvick battle for the points lead and the Gibbs cars make their performance surge, a story few have been talking about is the race at the other end of the point standings – that is the race to stay in the top 35 in the owner standings.
For most of the last 11 weeks as NASCAR has traversed the country and this season’s plot lines have developed and grown, Front Row Motorsports (collectively) and Robby Gordon have been trading that dreaded 36th spot in the points standings.
Front Row Motorsports for its effort has three drivers – Travis Kvapil, David Gilliland and Kevin Conway - that it’s been attempting to keep in the top-35 and locked into races. With a limited budget, and old Roush-Yates motors, the team has performed admirably. The story of Bob Jenkins and his little team that could has been one of the feel good stories of the year.
The team’s main goal has been to keep the fully sponsored, but struggling Kevin Conway with a guaranteed starting spot. Conway has traded his number/team with teammate David Gilliland twice now. Though it’s purely a surface thing (the team even changes the number on the hauler), it’s worked. Conway hasn’t missed a race. Perhaps more remarkably, neither has Gilliland.
Front Row’s main foe this season has been the independent Robby Gordon. Gordon, like Front Row, faces some adversity – he’s under-funded and under-supported- still Gordon has been able to fight against the start-ups and even Front Row’s three car assault and keep his team in the top-35 (most weeks).
Gordon though may or may not compete the whole season. And this week’s penalty didn’t help him in his bid to keep his team with a guaranteed starting position. After losing 25 points for unapproved additional door braces, Gordon is now just 18 points ahead of David Gilliland and that 36th place position.
As these teams fight to maintain their very valuable points positions every little mistake will be amplified and every position will count. As we continue through the summer and the season (barring anyone falling way behind) this will one fight to keep your eye on.
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I enjoy watching this battle every year. It’s especially interesting thiis year with 3 of the 4 main cars on the bubble belonging to the same team. (And isn’t it ironic that the team at the back is called “front row”?) I’m not fond of them switching numbers around. Since Conway is the only team with full sponsorship, I can understand it, but I still don’t like it. He clearly isn’t fast enough to make the show most weekends. To his credit, though, at least he’s keeping out of trouble.
With the recent improvements of both the #26 and #36, I’m hoping they can get back up there and challenge for a top-35 spot. The #26 made a pretty big gain last week. The #36 gained a lot at Richmond, but then lost what they’d gained after a DNQ at Darlington.
Any thoughts on if or how much Off Road Racing takes away from RG’s Cup racing?
@Rick: Robby’s problems in NASCAR aren’t due to his off-road racing, it’s his lack of funding in NASCAR that hurts. Clearly his organization would benefit from having a second car, but that can’t be done unless it’s fully funded. Until there are more sponsors willing to invest, he’ll have to keep going as a single car, underfunded operation.
His off-road endeavours actually help his NASCAR operation. He would never have primary sponsorship by Monster (as he does for several cup races this year) if they weren’t his full-time sponsor for his SCORE and Dakar teams. Similar with Polaris – they are only on his cup car because they back him in off-road.
Until the partnership with BAM came along just before the season started, it was looking like Robby wouldn’t even be able to run all the races this year due to lack of funding. But he doesn’t have that problem with the off-road efforts.
I have not been a big fan of Front Row Motorsports. They bought there way into the top 35 and put an inexperienced driver in one of their cars. I get that sponsorship is what keeps a team going, but why on earth does Kevin Conway get a full sponsor yet Casey Mears or Scott Riggs can’t?