Regan Smith: Breaking the NASCAR mould

There's been a bit of a changing of the guard in the NASCAR Sprint Cup this season, with three drivers - Regan Smith, David Ragan and Paul Menard - taking their maiden series wins.

But while Ragan and Menard drive for the Roush Fenway and Richard Childress 'superteams', Smith's breakthrough came behind the wheel of a Chevrolet Impala prepared by one of the smallest outfits in the series - Furniture Row Racing.

And what makes its success even more notable is the fact that Furniture Row is the only team not based in NASCAR's historic heartland of Charlotte, North Carolina. In fact, the team's 'shop' is more than 1500 miles away in Denver, Colorado.

Smith took the chequered flag at the prestigious Southern 500 held at Darlington back in May. It was the first time a driver had broken his duck in that race since Lake Speed took his first Cup win there in 1988.

Since then Smith has flirted with the top 15 on occasion, and got his season back on track with a third-placed finish at the Brickyard 400.

He's currently 26th in the standings, but faces a tough task to meet his pre-season aim of cracking the top 20.

Regan Smith in the pack with the Furniture Row Chevrolet Impala © LAT

"Yeah, it's definitely been a good season so far," he says. "I think there's a couple of areas where we could do better, but we've run a lot better at some of the race tracks," he says.

"We've had a lot of speed at a lot of different tracks, but from the standpoint of going to some tracks where we maybe weren't good last year and doing better this year, we've done that.

"Obviously the win really helps out a lot and we're starting to get some top 10s and things like that. We've not reached our goals yet and we're not sitting where we want to in the points, but we're steadily getting there, we're making big gains.

"The first goal for us is 'let's get to the top 20', next goal is 'let's get another win', and somehow we have to make that happen and it's a very real possibility that we can do this."

Furniture Row is a one-car team going up against the multi-car entries from series stalwarts Hendrick Motorsports, Roush, Joe Gibbs Racing and Childress.

Smith acknowledges that this has its pros and cons, the benefit being that he is free to go off on whatever set-up tangents he pleases, the downside being that if he finds himself going down a blind alley, a lot of reversing is required.

But while Furniture Row might be small and based in the picturesque Colorado surroundings unfamiliar to the other teams, it actually operates a very close technical tie-up with RCR, whose lead driver Kevin Harvick is currently in the thick of the battle at the top of the standings.

"We do have a really good relationship with RCR," adds Smith. "We still get parts and pieces from them, so that relationship really helps out. At the race weekends we have access to their databases and they have access to ours.

Regan Smith with crew chief Pete Rondeau © LAT

"We have an open door, an open-book policy with all that so we can lean on them if we're having trouble, so that helps out. I think it's just a lot of little things that help stuff work out.

"I would say that at the start of last year we changed pretty much everything in the company from the previous year.

"Barney [Visser, team owner] and Joe [Garone, Smith's team manager] and everybody made a big commitment to shift some stuff around and change some personnel and bring in some new people.

"That's been a huge help; we've got a really strong foundation now - at the end of the day the biggest thing you can have is good people.

"I think halfway through last year we started turning that corner, we started getting all of our new cars implemented and things like that. We've just continued to refine that process and the cool part about us is, yeah, we're a small team, but we're never set in our ways.

"I feel every week we bring to the track something new or roll something different out or we make an improvement somewhere and that's the mentality through the whole shop.

"Every guy, whether it's the janitor or the head engineer, we're all looking for a way to make their job better or improve the racecars on the track and that's a good thing to have."

Smith recently upped sticks and moved to Denver, showing his commitment to the cause.

He's contracted through to the end of 2012, but more performances like the one he produced at Darlington, where he held off a charging Carl Edwards, (whose Roush Ford was on much fresher rubber), are sure to catch the eyes of some of the more established team bosses.

"I'm on a contract until next year," he confirms. "I think for us, going forward, the main thing is to continue progressing.

Regan Smith greets his growing fanbase © LAT

"OK, now we've won a race but we still want to consistently run in the top 10 and top five and we want to win more races.

"We want to be a threat every week to win a race, and then when we've done that we want to get into the Chase and we want to be a threat to win the championship.

"We just want to keep on building, it's no different to what the #48 [Jimmie Johnson], #24 [Jeff Gordon], #29 [Harvick] or #31 [Jeff Burton] are doing, they're just further along in that and we're trying to catch up."

The Southern 500 wasn't the first time Smith had been first across the line in a NASCAR Cup race. He'd actually finished first on the road at the 2008 AMP Energy 500 at Talladega when he was driving for Dale Earnhardt Inc.

But he was judged to have passed Tony Stewart under the yellow line and was relegated to 18th, the last of the lead-lap runners.

"I wouldn't say it bugs me any more," he explains. "Now that I've got one... It bugged me up to a point that I'd got one.

"You always wonder whether you'll ever get that opportunity again. It's been pretty well documented how tough this series is and there are a lot of guys with big credentials that have come in and have had troubles.

"I don't go to a single track and think we're not in a position where we can win.

"I thought at the start of the year that we're going to win this year and people probably looked at me like I was crazy when I said it, but I believed it and it's how strong I feel about what we've got going on here."