Matt Tifft moving up to the Cup Series in 2019 with Front Row Motorsports

·College football and motorsports writer

November 27, 2018 at 1:08 p.m.

Front Row Motorsports is expanding to three teams in 2019.

Matt Tifft will join David Ragan and Michael McDowell at Front Row next season. Tifft is moving up from the Xfinity Series, where he spent the last two seasons driving for Richard Childress Racing.

Tifft will drive the No. 36 car for FRM while McDowell stays in the No. 34 and Ragan stays in the No. 38.

“We’ve made it clear in recent years that it was our intent to continue to invest in NASCAR and expand to a three-car team,” Front Row owner Bob Jenkins said in a statement. “Not only are we here to stay, we’re here to grow.

“We already have two proven veterans in our line-up, and now we’ll get to add an impressive young talent and championship contender who will inject some new energy into the group. With the introduction of the Ford Mustang into the Cup Series, 2019 is shaping up to be an exciting season for us.”

The championship contender part of Jenkins’ statement can’t be referring to Tifft’s prospects in 2019. With the exception of Chris Buescher’s surprise playoff berth in 2016 thanks to a fuel strategy win at Pocono, no FRM driver has ever finished in the top 20 in the points standings.

Tifft finished sixth in the Xfinity points standings in 2018 and was seventh in 2017. He has nine top-five finishes in 77 career races in NASCAR’s No. 2 series and has never won a race in either the Xfinity Series or Camping World Truck Series.

Front Row previously fielded three full-time cars in 2015. The team downsized before the 2016 season and has run two full-time cars for the past three seasons.

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Nick Bromberg is a writer for Yahoo Sports.

Follow @NickBromberg on Twitter