FORT WORTH, Tex. — Driver Martin Truex Jr. believes a change of scenery will change his fortunes.
Furniture Row Racing believes the addition of Truex will help the Denver, Colo.-based team maintain the success it found this year in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series with Kurt Busch behind the wheel.
The official — and expected — announcement of Truex’s move to Furniture Row came Friday morning at Texas Motor Speedway, where the 33-year-old driver appeared with team general manager Joe Garone to answer questions about the new multiyear partnership.
“I’m very excited about the opportunity to drive the Furniture Row No. 78 for Joe and (team owner) Barney (Visser),” said Truex, who signed his new contract Thursday night. “I’ve really been impressed with their organization. Obviously, I think everybody here has been impressed with what they have accomplished this year, being a single-car team based out of Denver.
“I think that anybody in this garage area will tell you it’s been really amazing to watch them progress. Everybody has been impressed with their competition program, the way their cars have ran this year, the speed that they’ve had. I’m looking forward, obviously, to being a part of that equation.”
Signing with Furniture Row is a serendipitous turn of events for Truex, who had plenty of anxious moments after the organization for which he has driven for four seasons, Michael Waltrip Racing, was penalized severely for manipulating the outcome of the final regular-season race Sept. 7 at Richmond.
The penalties knocked Truex out of a Chase spot he thought he had earned and ultimately led to the departure of NAPA, Truex’s primary sponsor at MWR. Without the reported $16-million annual backing from NAPA, Truex had to pursue opportunities with other organizations.
Furniture Row simultaneously was looking for a replacement for Busch, who will drive for Stewart-Haas Racing next year. Busch qualified for the Chase this year, putting Furniture Row into NASCAR’s playoff for the first time in the organization’s history.
“I was terrified,” Truex said of his reaction to learning NAPA was leaving MWR. “My first thought was ‘What am I going to do next year?’ Here it is September. Everybody’s got their deals done for next year. I pretty much said ‘Oh Crap.’
“It was like getting punched in the face. You didn’t see it coming. It came out of nowhere. Obviously, I kind of saw it coming after what all went down (at Richmond). Right away, it was ‘Uh, oh, this is bad. This could be real bad.'”
Fortunately for Truex, who broke a six-year winless streak when he collected his second career NASCAR Sprint Cup victory at Sonoma in June, Furniture Row exercised patience in its driver search.
“We were looking at every driver that was available, and some that you would bring up out of the other series that are ready to come up, or maybe even not quite ready yet,” Garone said. “We were looking at all of those, and we were really trying to take our time.
“It’s a balance. We’re also trying to compete — make the Chase, compete in the Chase. We don’t want to upset that. It was really a struggle to keep ourselves patient and just pray for the right opportunity to come along. And then, the right opportunity comes along.”
Greg is the author of "The Nuts and Bolts of NASCAR: The Definitive Viewers' Guide to Big-Time Stock Car Auto Racing" and has been published in major publications across the country including the Los Angeles Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He was also a contributor to Chicken Soup for the NASCAR Soul, published in 2010, and the Christmas edition in 2016. He wrote as the NASCAR, Formula 1, Auto Reviews and National Veterans Affairs Examiner for Examiner.com and has appeared on Fox News. He holds a BS degree in communications, a Masters degree in psychology and is currently a PhD candidate majoring in psychology. He is currently the weekend Motorsports Editor for Autoweek.
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