The latest shoe string budget team to switch to Ford’s F-9 engines is the two car team of Whitney Motorsports. Crew chief Tony Furr confirmed the announcement at New Hampshire and this weekends race at Indianapolis will mark the first with the blue oval on the front of the teams cars.
The team, which owns a total of 10 cars, had already changed over two of it’s machines to the Ford package and was working on making the necessary changes to two others.
But will the change impact their finishing results much?
Furr said that the team planned to race a total of 10 events with one of their cars while opting to start and park the second.
Don’t be surprised to see former Roush development driver Erik Darnell behind the wheel of the #46 going forward. Darnell was recommend for the ride at New Hampshire by Jack Roush and Furr said he was fine with him driving going forward.
JJ Yeley had driven the majority of the races for the #46 car. He had been successful in qualifying for 15 of the 16 events attempted. Despite that the team had mainly been a start and park operation, it’s highest finish with Yeley was 37th at Phoenix. He has since moved on to Front Row Racing and will drive the #55 going forward. He finished 23rd at Loudon in his first race for that team.
The team has also employed Bill Elliott, Scott Riggs along with road course drivers Andy Pilgrim and Brian Simko. Riggs has been the primary driver of the teams other car the #81. Simo’s lone run in the #81 at Sonoma was a Ford car as well.
So until Whitney Motorsports can run a semi-full race schedule don’t expect too much to change for them on the results page.
