Zane Smith is back at Front Row Motorsports.
The team made its long-awaited announcement that Smith would be in a third NASCAR Cup Series car in 2025 on Thursday. The formality came after the team said that its purchase of a charter from Stewart-Haas Racing had been finalized amidst its legal wrangling with NASCAR over the new charter agreement.
Smith, 25, won the 2022 Truck Series title for Front Row Motorsports. He won four races that season and had 19 top-10 finishes over 23 races. His fourth win of the season came in the winner-take-all championship race.
After another season in the Truck Series in 2023, Smith moved to the Cup Series in 2024 with Spire Motorsports. Smith had signed a deal with Trackhouse Racing, but the team loaned him out to a third Spire car. With Trackhouse expanding to three cars in 2025 and adding Shane van Gisbergen to its Cup Series team, Smith found himself a free agent at the end of the season.
Smith ended up 30th in the standings with two top-fives and five top-10 finishes. He had just one top-10 finish before finding out he was set to be a free agent at the end of the season.
Front Row is expanding back to three cars after fielding two cars in recent seasons. Smith joins Todd Gilliland and Noah Gragson as Michael McDowell moves to Spire for 2025. Gragson joins the team after SHR closed down at the end of the 2024 season.
Both FRM and 23XI Racing moved to purchase charters from SHR but the future of those sales had been in limbo after the two teams filed an antitrust lawsuit against NASCAR over its franchising agreement with the teams. The two teams were the only ones who didn’t sign the charter agreement before the previous one expired at the end of the 2024 season.
By not signing the agreement, the teams weren’t able to close their charter purchases. However, they received a preliminary injunction from a federal judge that allows them to temporarily compete as chartered teams — and purchase the charters from SHR — in 2025 as their lawsuit against NASCAR progresses.
