Furniture Row picks up Truex’s option, aligns with Toyota

With Martin Truex Jr. set to remain in the No. 78 Furniture Row Racing car, the Denver, Colo.-based team announced on Sunday morning it will field Toyotas in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series next season.

In 2016, Furniture Row will enter into a technical alliance with Joe Gibbs Racing, which has won nine of the last 12 races in the series, and will get its engines from Toyota Racing Development, U.S.A., which also supplies the four JGR Cup teams.

“To continue on and grow the way we’d like to grow, Toyota is a perfect fit,” said FRR president and general manager Joe Garone, “not only from the competition side, competing every week more competitively for wins and for the Chase, but also from a business perspective, to give us the platform to expand the team into a multi-car team.

“In addition, you couldn’t ask for a better partner with a winning record than Joe Gibbs Racing.”

Garone added that it won’t be until 2017 that FRR can take a serious look at adding a second car.

The organization has picked up its 2016 option on Truex, who so far this year has recorded a team-record 18 top-10 finishes and qualified for the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup with a victory at Pocono Raceway in June.

“It’s always nice to know you’re going to have a job at the end of the year,” Truex quipped. “That’s the toughest time in this sport, when contract time comes up, especially when you’re in a good situation, and you want to keep it going, and there’s people out there trying to take your job and get in your car and all that kind of thing.

“These days, silly season in this sport just gets absolutely crazy, and it’s not really any fun, to be honest with you. So I’m just glad that I was able to get it out of the way fairly early and focus on the Chase and focus on next year. We’ve got a lot of things we need to get done, and we certainly don’t need distractions.”

For the past decade, Furniture Row has fielded Chevrolets. The company has been part of a technical partnership with Richard Childress Racing since 2010, purchasing its chassis from RCR and its engines from Earnhardt-Childress Racing Engines.

Truex finished eighth in Sunday’s Sylvania 300 and is ninth in the Chase standings with one event left in the Challenger Round.