COTA shows no love to Front Row Motorsports

What looked like a hopeful weekend at COTA turned into one that Front Row Motorsports will want to forget.

Entering the weekend, their No.38 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series team was undefeated at Circuit of the Americas. Meanwhile, in the Cup Series, many looked to Michael McDowell as a possible favorite, given his track record on road courses last year.

In the Truck Series, Layne Riggs wheeled the No. 38 Ford F-150 to an eighth-place qualifying effort Friday, all despite no prior road course experience.

Riggs jumped to second and looked primed for a standout run Saturday to keep the No. 38 team undefeated.

As a three-truck wreck broke out exiting turn 20, Riggs was seen in the distance coming to a crawl as the field went up the hill into turn one.

“After I hopped the curb real bad, the dash went black. The truck cuts off whenever I have a vibration. The only way it stays on is if it runs smooth,” Riggs said.

Riggs pitted under green as the wreck didn’t warrant a caution. Addressing what Riggs believed was a connection issue, the team looked at the left-rear of the truck. Multiple stops, at least one for a penalty, put him multiple laps down.

The team got him back out to salvage a 27th-place finish, three laps down.

Coincidentally, Michael McDowell qualified 27th for Sunday’s race. The longest-tenured Front Row Motorsports driver was a little luckier at COTA but not by much.

McDowell showed speed as he entered the top-15 within around 10 laps. It was then that crew chief Travis Peterson decided to keep McDowell out, leading him to eight points for getting third in the stage.

McDowell stayed out with Christopher Bell, who also played the two-stop strategy. While McDowell dropped back quicker than Bell, he was still at a net gain from where he was before when he pitted on lap 23.

As stage two came to an end, however, McDowell slowed to a near-crawl. An in-car camera showed him manhandling the wheel, trying to get it around the track.

McDowell suspected he had a power steering issue. When he pitted, the team confirmed he had a broken rack mount. However, they couldn’t fix it, as the mount came loose from the chassis.

Worse yet for McDowell, the final stage was the longest run of the race — 35 laps, 119 miles. He grinded it out, even pitting to stretch, rest and take a drink of water, then return to the track, hoping the trend of late-race calamity would continue despite no cautions for incident in the race.

With seven laps to go, it became apparent to the team that wouldn’t happen. McDowell pitted and retired from the race.

McDowell was the only driver who didn’t finish Sunday. Teammate Todd Gilliland didn’t fare much better, ending up (coincidentally) 27th.