Zane Smith returns to Front Row Motorsports.
The team announced Thursday that Smith would be in a third NASCAR Cup Series car in 2025. The formality came after the team said its purchase of a charter from Stewart-Haas Racing was finalized midway through of its legal wrangling with NASCAR over the new rental 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 in 23 races. His fourth victory 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 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 finished 30th in the standings with two top fives and five top 10s. He finished only one top 10 before finding out he was going to become a free agent at the end of the season.
Front Row returns to three cars after fielding two in recent seasons. Smith joins Todd Gilliland and Noah Gragson as Michael McDowell joins Spire for 2025. Gragson joins the team after SHR folds at the end of the 2024 season.
FRM and 23XI Racing decided to purchase charters from SHR, but the future of those sales was in limbo after both teams filed an antitrust lawsuit against NASCAR over its franchise agreement with the teams. The two teams were the only ones not to have signed the rental contract before the previous one expired at the end of the 2024 season.
By not signing the agreement, the teams were unable to finalize their charter purchases. However, they received a preliminary injunction from a federal judge who allows them to temporarily compete as licensed teams – and purchase SHR’s charters – in 2025 as their lawsuit against NASCAR progresses.
