GMS Racing probably isn’t buying Furniture Row Racing after all
By Nick Tylwalk
The defending NASCAR Cup Series champion now has to hope that his team can come up with sponsorship for next season to ensure as little disruption as possible since a potential outside buyer sounds unlikely to come to the rescue.
NASCAR Silly Season has always been a whirlwind of unexpected twists and turns, but those developments simply happen faster in 2018. Case in point: GMS Racing buying Furniture Row Racing was the hot NASCAR rumor for Thursday.
By Friday, that fire had already been mostly extinguished thanks to a report by RacinBoys that the possible deal was unlikely to happen. A meeting between the two sides was confirmed, but it ended with the feeling that nothing was going to happen.
GMS Racing president Mike Beam made it sound like time pressure was a factor.
"We talked about it a lot. It’s definitely a great race team. We just don’t have time to put it together."
The pairing would have made some sense, as Furniture Row Racing does not want to self-sponsor and GMS Racing has been exploring ways to get into the NASCAR Cup Series that don’t involve simply bumping up its XFINITY Series team. But now it seems the push will be for FRR to simply buckle down, find sponsorship for its No. 78 Toyota and keep driver Martin Truex Jr. and crew chief Cole Pearn in the fold.
Frankly, the Furniture Row Racing story is a good one for NASCAR, a one-car team (though it was two cars last year when Truex won the title and in some ways operates as an offshoot of powerhouse Joe Gibbs Racing) that operates out of Denver and does things its own way. It’s also important to remember that there are human beings involved in any story like this, ones that could potentially lose jobs in any kind of acquisition or consolidation.
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Still, it would have been interesting indeed to see what kind of splash GMS Racing could make at the Cup Series level if it suddenly found itself with championship-caliber equipment and talent. Its road to the top level of stock car racing will be bumpier on its own, just as the one Furniture Road Racing is following continues to have an uncertain destination.