“I’m looking forward to working with the young team,” Kerr said. “As an organization, they’ve only been on track for a few short years, but there’s a lot of experience in the shop, in the leadership and behind the wheel. I’m looking forward to helping them continue to grow.”

Kerr comes to FRM from JTG Daugherty Racing, where he worked with drivers Bobby Labonte and Marcos Ambrose. It’ll be a reunion of sorts for crew chief and driver, as Kerr worked with Gilliland for a short time in the Nationwide Series in 2005.

Lane has worked with teams including Petty Enterprises and Chip Ganassi Racing and with drivers such as Kyle Petty and David Stremme. Lane was previously with the Front Row Motorsports in 2009, then as crew chief for the No. 34 car.

“This will definitely feel like a homecoming, of sorts, back with Front Row and back with Ford,” Lane said. “It was a great experience to help get Front Row’s first full-time Cup team off the ground back in 2009, and this will be a similar experience working with Josh as he expands his role with the team.

Front Row Motorsports is a three car team, and as for its No. 34 group — the crew chief remains the same. Jay Guy remains with the No. 34 and driver David Ragan.

“It’s great to have three veteran guys leading our race teams and have Derrick (Finley) back exclusively in his competition director role as we start the season with the new Ford Fusions,” team owner Bob Jenkins said. “Just like every other team, we’re going to have a lot of benchmarking, analysis and building to do this season, and it’ll help us to have a solid, experienced group leading that effort with each guy having a focused role.

Finley was previously FRM’s competition director, but assumed crew chief duties for Gilliland and the No. 38 team late last season.

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Eutechnyx and NASCAR 2011: The Game are teaming up to sponsor the Dale Earnhardt Jr-owned #7 Chevrolet in this weekend’s NASCAR Nationwide Series race at Nashville. Josh Wise will be the driver.

Supposedly, this is a one-race deal, and is a slap in the face to anybody who bought the highly-anticipated and much-hyped NASCAR video game. Several race fanatics who spent the $60 it cost to buy the game ought to be severely upset about Eutechnyx’s decision to sponsor a race car, even if it’s just for one race.

According to a recent article about NASCAR sponsorships, the cost to sponsor a car for one race is anywhere from $350,000 to $500,000.

But let’s say Eutechnyx cut a deal with JR Motorsports, and only had to spend $100,000 marketing their product on Wise’s race car. Eutechnyx could take that money and refund over 1,650 justifiably upset people.

And if the cost to sponsor the car was indeed half a million dollars, that number goes all the way up to 8,333.

So why is this really a big deal? Didn’t fans know what they were buying before we actually purchased the game?

Well, actually the answer is no.

Allow me to backtrack for a moment. Eutechnyx put 2 years and several million dollars into the development of this game, as well as an additional 6 months and millions more dollars into advertising. The company declared it was to be the “most realistic NASCAR experience ever”, and heavily promoted the “most realistic damage model ever before seen in a NASCAR game”.

After we spent 6 months listening to the hype, collectively we all went out and spent $60 on what we thought would be the most amazing racing game ever. What we got was, to put it nicely, crap.

The damage model was worse than NASCAR Heat 2002, the sensitivity was as bad as a cheap simulator Honda might come up with to promote its Eco-Boost cars, and the overall experience was just junk.

In a sense, we’ve been bamboozled by false advertising. And instead of refunding us the money we’re rightfully owed, Eutechnyx is putting its money elsewhere. Primarily, on the hood of a race car, to promote a product that never should have been advertised in the first place.

That’s why it’s a big deal. That’s why it’s a slap in the face.

It’s a shame, really. But it’s a sad reality. While we’re stuck sitting at home angrily clutching our shiny game box(for those of us who haven’t already thrown it out), the people of Eutechnyx will be sitting in their piles of money, watching their logo make laps around a race track.

And on the hood of a car owned by NASCAR’s most popular driver, no less.