Zane Smith wouldn’t choose the trials and tribulations of 2024 all over again but he also recognizes all the ways it made him better for what comes next.
The 25-year-old is back at Front Row Motorsports, where he earned the 2022 Truck Series championship but this time in the NASCAR Cup Series following a full-time campaign with Spire Motorsports loaned out from Trackhouse.
That deal proved to be short-lived, Trackhouse ultimately choosing to promote Shane Van Gisbergen to the Cup Series as part of its expansion to three teams. Smith didn’t expect to be a free agent so quickly and at a point of silly season where there were not a lot of obvious playoff caliber opportunities available.
And even then, upon reaching an agreement to return to Front Row Motorsports, its pending antitrust lawsuit against NASCAR further complicated the certainty of his future.
“I feel like I’ve lost three years of my life this year,” Smith told Sportsnaut on Monday. “When I was let go, it was a weird situation and life isn’t always fair, but it wasn’t fair. I got a text from Bob (Jenkins, FRM team owner) asking if I was set for next year so I told him, ‘as a matter of fact, I just got fired.’
“I thought he was just interested in talking about the Truck Series but after going back-and-forth and realizing what he was putting together, I signed within a week. I’m not educated enough on the lawsuit to offer an opinion on it but I knew enough then to realize that it was getting tense with the charter stuff. Once FRM and 23XI filed the lawsuit, I thought, ‘man, I can’t catch a break here.’
“It was just an awkward situation.”
If his car didn’t have a charter, it wasn’t clear to Smith if that car would even make it to the track, so he kept his phone on just in case. There were some options but he very much wanted to stay at Front Row. Smith says he lost sleep over it.
Keep in mind, while all of this was going on, Smith was also trying to deliver for his current team, each of them working to justify their own continued spots at the highest level of the discipline. Through it all, Smith, crew chief Stephen Doran and the No. 71 team became a consistent top 20 program by the end of the year.
There was also, however, the matter of returning to Ford Performance just one year after leaving it to go Cup racing with a Chevrolet team. For Smith to return to Front Row, and receive assets from the manufacturer, it would mean having Mark Rushbrook of Ford signing off on it.
There was some apprehension.
“Ford did a lot for me and for the 38 Truck and our part-time Cup Series deal,” Smith said. “I felt we left on good terms. We went to Dearborn to celebrate. I probably could have communicated better to them the situation I was in.
“I didn’t have any other Cup offers to stay at Ford. I didn’t know there were other options. If I had known that what we decided to do wasn’t going to work out, that certain promises weren’t going to be kept, obviously that would have changed things.
“Mark is a very busy guy but we did get a chance to talk and I explained, ‘look, this was my first Cup offer and you can’t turn down what you think is a really good opportunity.’ It’s really hard to make it to the Cup Series. I loved my time at Ford and made so many friends and memories. I was spoiled with the success we had and I just hope that continues now that we’re back together.”
Smith says he isn’t getting too far ahead of himself setting expectations but he loves the dynamic from a personnel standpoint. Obviously, Jenkins and general manager Jerry Freeze are familiar faces but teammates Todd Gilliland and Noah Gragson are amongst his best friends. Ryan Bergenty, his crew chief, served in that capacity for his eight Cup starts with Front Row in 2022.
His Truck Series championship winning crew chief, Chris Lawson, is back with the company to work with Gilliland too. It feels like a homecoming.
“It’s weird because I haven’t been gone that long but the change in that building in a year is insane,” Smith said. “The shop has a new look. The trucks have their own building. There’s a lot of new faces with Noah bringing over his SHR guys. I’m looking forward to getting to know everyone.
“It’s good to have a lot of friends there and meeting with all the crew chiefs, they seem to be getting along well too. The crew chiefs having chemistry is something that gets overlooked a lot in this sport. It seems like a good mix so far.”
Smith carries a lot of momentum into his second full-time season too. The results speak for themselves, the runner-up at Nashville, a seventh place at Michigan and fifth place at Watkins Glen. Lost in all of that was that the 71 did not receive much to any simulator time, Trackhouse choosing to maximize the time for Van Gisbergen in his acclimation to oval racing.
When Smith was told he wouldn’t be back, the No. 71 team had a team meeting before Nashville and the driver asked his team to be aggressive.
“I said, please let’s be as aggressive as we can be,” Smith said. “I’d rather be leading short on fuel, on old tires, take whatever chance we can to make stuff happen.”
Ironically, that came just before that fuel-mileage gambit that netted them their best result of the season
“So then, that gives us confidence,” Smith said. “We get a better qualifying draw for the next week so I qualified better. With that comes a better pit stall. That gives us a better shot at staying on the lead lap by the end of Stage 1. Everyone is so close that one good finish like that just gives you the chance to stagger good results if you execute the next week.
“So, I wish I could take the credit for the run that we went on but Stephen was aggressive and that one result just changed the opportunity we had to put together better results. I like to think I did my part to execute and it takes all that coming together.”
With all that said, Smith does feel confident for his return to Front Row but isn’t setting any concrete expectations especially without having the benefit of unloading yet.
“Managing expectations is important because you’ll be quickly disappointed if you don’t,” Smith said. “Again, everyone is so close on Sundays. It comes down to executing. Look at Joey (Logano) last year. I don’t think our teams were that far apart in performance when we got to Nashville.
“Then Joey Logano did Joey Logano things. Paul Wolfe did Paul Wolfe things. Now they’re the champions. The executed when it mattered. So I do feel confident that we can win a race or two but you have to accept that your expectations change throughout the season and you have to manage the ups and downs.”
Matt Weaver is a Motorsports Insider for Sportsnaut. Follow him on Twitter.
