Furniture Row Racing unveiled the Bass Pro Shops Toyota that Martin Truex, Jr. will pilot in nine races in the 2016 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series during Tuesday’s NASCAR Media Tour at the NASCAR Hall of Fame in Charlotte, NC. Photo by Pete McCole
Hundreds of members of the motorsports media gathered Tuesday for the start of the 34th annual Charlotte Motor Speedway Media Tour at the NASCAR Hall of Fame in downtown Charlotte, NC, as teams and drivers from the all three of NASCAR’s premiere racing series met with the media to discuss the upcoming 2016 NASCAR season.
Opening day of the tour was highlighted by visits with NASCAR’s top Toyota teams, leading off with the 2015 Sprint Cup Championship-winning Joe Gibbs Racing and their driver line-up including Denny Hamlin, Matt Kenseth, Carl Edwards and Sprint Cup Champion Kyle Busch.
Looking back to this same time last year, Busch began the season with a lot of optimism for the future, including the challenge of becoming a new father. Just four weeks later, Busch found himself in the hospital with a broken leg and broken foot after a crash in the Xfinity Series race at Daytona. His entire 2015 season – and any chance of competing for the title – seemed to be over.
But Busch worked his way back, pushing through his recovery with a fierce determination, and was back in the car by May. NASCAR gave Busch an exemption allowing him to make the Chase, if he could win and race and fight his way into he top 30 in points. Busch did better than that – winning four races and battling his way to 27th in points to qualify for the Chase.
Although Busch had had a reputation for stumbling in the Chase, this time around he was able to stay the course, earning a berth in the Championship Four at Homestead, where he won out over defending champion Kevin Harvick to finally win the title that had eluded him for so long.
“I compare it to the Golden State Warriors having to play one or two months without Steph Curry and then having him come back and they go on to win the championship,” said Busch. “This is a team sport. There’s one driver behind the wheel, but it takes a complete team to win a title. We did that last year and we are absolutely focused on doing that again in 2016.”
For the 2016 season, JGR plans to shake things up on the crew chief department, with Edwards and Hamlin getting new head wrench turners atop the pit box.
Despite being the “new guy” at JGR, Edwards finished second-highest among the Gibbs drivers in the Chase standings, ending the year firth after just missing out on the final four, but a fifth-place showing apparently wasn’t what Gibbs were expecting, as they relived Darien Grubb of his crew chief duties and brought in Dave Rogers to helm the No. 19 Toyota. Rogers previously served as crew chief for Hamlin, who will now have JGR Xfinity crew chief Mike Wheeler calling the shots for the No. 11 team.
Up next on the tour was the newest member of the Toyota stable – the Denver, Colorado-based Furniture Row Racing and driver Martin Truex, Jr.
Truex and FRR had been the Cinderella story of the 2015 championship contenders. An underdog single-car team based far from the motorsports Mecca of the southeast, FRR could been seen as having a disadvantage against their competition.
After a dismal 2014 performance, Truex and his new crew chief Cole Pearn exploded right out of the gate with top-10 finishes in the first nine races – four more than they had scored in ALL of 2014 – and picked up the team’s second-career Sprint Cup victory with a win at Pocono to earn a slot in the Chase.
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Truex, who had entered the season as a 200-1 shot to win the title, stayed in the hunt to earn a shot at the title at Homestead. Truex’s bid came up short with a 12th-place finish – last among the final four contenders – but get the team a new goal to shot for in 2016.
“Obviously I feel more confident going into this season than I did last season. It was interesting that we went from our worse season ever to our best,” said Truex. “I feel like even though there’s going to be a lot of changes coming to our team equipment-wise and car-wise we can pick up where we left off in 2015.”
After a 10-year relationship with Chevrolet, FRR will campaign Toyotas during the 2016 season, partnering up in a technical alliance with Joe Gibbs Racing.
For team general manager Joe Garone, partnering with Toyota was the right move for the team, who as a single-car operation would benefit greatly from their alliance with JGR, more so than trying to start a second team.
“Running a second car would make the team stronger, but you do have to remember one thing – we are a multi-car team, we’re just not under the same roof, so we’re not really standing alone,” said Garone. “If you do stand alone, I think you would really have to have a second and third car in your own house, but the way it’s structured now, if we do expand at Furniture Row it’ll just make our overall team – meaning Toyota and Joe Gibbs (Racing) and ourselves all that more better.”
Furniture Row Racing will also welcome a new sponsor for the 2016 season, with Bass Pro Shops coming on board to sponsor the No. 78 team for nine races. Although Furniture Row has served as both owner and sponsor of the team since its inception, Garone says getting the No. 78 fully funded would be the first step toward starting a second team at FRR.
“We would like to get the 78 car fully funded, or at least three-quarter funded, and that’s part of the pathway to a second car,” said Garone. “We need to continue to get sponsorship and partners on board and once we reach a certain level of sponsorship we’ll be in a position to start a second car.”
Opening day of the media wrapped up with a presentation from FOX Sports, who introduced their new broadcast team for their 2016 Sprint Cup coverage.
Joining FOX’s broadcast team will be four-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Champion Jeff Gordon, who will join FOX Sports alongside play-by-play announcer Mike Joy and NASCAR Hall of Famer and analyst Darrell Waltrip in the broadcast booth when the season begins at Daytona less than a month away.
“I always thought there was an opportunity for me in TV, if they were interested in having me,” Gordon said. “My biggest concern was stepping out of the race car and finding out how to replace that competitive environment. It’s (broadcasting) an adrenaline rush and has challenges, but I get to work with a great team.”
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