CUP: Ragan Puts ‘Wild And Crazy’ Offseason Behind Him

Sprint Cup

CUP: Ragan Puts ‘Wild And Crazy’ Offseason Behind Him

David Ragan will drive for Front Row Motorsports in the upcoming season...

Bob Pockrass | http://www.scenedaily.com | Posted January 17, 2012 Charlotte, NC

David Ragan spent much of the winter in negotiations with Sprint Cup teams before ultimately landing at Front Row Motorsports. (Photo: Getty Images)

David Ragan called it “a wild and crazy” offseason, one that helped him mature as a person and finally ended with him landing a 2012 Sprint Cup ride barely one month before the start of the new season.

Thinking he might have a shot at rides at Penske Racing, Richard Petty Motorsports and Phoenix Racing, the 26-year-old Ragan instead has landed at Front Row Motorsports for the 2012 season.

Ragan had been looking for a ride since the end of 2011 as his Roush Fenway Racing team could not find sponsorship to field a car for him in 2012.

“My heart was really at Roush wanting to put a program together there but it just didn’t happen,” Ragan said in a phone interview Monday. “As far as some of the other opportunities that were out there that I wasn’t able to land, that’s just the way things go.

“Ultimately, I don’t know the reasoning behind the choices that were made. But everything happens for a reason. In the next year or two, I’ll look back and say, ‘Man, I’m glad it worked out this way.’”

Ragan has 182 career starts – all with Roush Fenway Racing – with 12 top-five and 30 top-10 finishes.

Bypassed for those other rides, Ragan said he would use everything that happened in the offseason as motivation. He finished 23rd in the standings in 2011 but did win in July at Daytona. His best finish in the standings was 13th in 2008.

“I use everything as motivation,” Ragan said. “We’ve got a lot of motivation to go out and out-run as many teams as we can. There are a lot of teams on our level ... just a one-car or two-car team that we’re kind of midpack [with] and we’re fighting to be at the tail end of those A-team cars.

“If we can outrun those middle-of-the-pack guys and get a few of those A-team guys every week, we’re a top-15 or top-20 car before you know it.”

Front Row entered full-time Cup racing in 2009 and has fielded two full-time teams that raced every event in each of the last two years as well as one car that parked early in races. The organization plans to field at least two full-time cars in 2012. Jay Guy, who joined the team in the middle of the 2011 season, remains with the team and will be Ragan’s crew chief.

Ragan recently toured the shop and believes he can run in the top 25 consistently with the organization, whose full-time teams were 31st and 35th in owner points last year.

“I realized this wasn’t as small of an organization as I thought they were,” Ragan said. “They employ a lot of good people. They hang their own bodies, and they do their own work there at the race shop in Statesvillle (N.C.).

“I saw the potential there. … There’s a lot of room to grow. And where I’m at in my career, I’ve got to still be as aggressive as I can to show everybody that I belong in the Sprint Cup Series.”

Although the team did not attend the Daytona test last week, Ragan thinks it will be prepared for the Daytona 500. Not only did Ragan get to test at Daytona in November, he also has a spot in the Budweiser Shootout.

That will give Ragan plenty of time to experience the draft at Daytona, which could be a little crazy. Then again, Ragan’s already been through a nerve-wracking chess game trying to find a ride.

“It’s been a wild and crazy offseason for sure,” Ragan said. “It’s made me mature a little bit as a driver off the race track in learning how the process works. … The offseason was tough.

“It’s tough going through the holidays not knowing what you’re going to do and when you come back from vacation, where am I going to go to work on Monday? It was good to get all those things materialized.”

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