How Martin Truex Jr. might end up driving a Chevrolet for GMS Racing before too long

The latest buzz around Furniture Row Racing could mean one of the wildest NASCAR Silly Season dominoes in some time will fall after the season ends.

The first NASCAR Cup Series championship Martin Truex Jr. won was in a Furniture Row Racing Toyota. If he doesn’t win again this season, the next one he wins might be in a GMS Racing Chevrolet.

Granted, this would require several things to happen, but all of them now seem at the very least, within the realm of possibility after a SportsBusiness Daily report (subscription required, though Jayski has a summary too) that Furniture Row Racing might sell its racing assets to GMS Racing. The sources quoted for the article don’t know if such a deal would be immediate or require a temporary alliance in 2019 before fully taking shape in 2020.

If it happens, it would be an interesting but logical intersection of two stories that have taken some twists and turns this year. Furniture Row Racing saw its future turn uncertain after news got out that it was losing 5-hour Energy as a sponsor after 2018, leaving it in the unusual and uncomfortable position of needing to hunt for sponsorship for the reigning NASCAR Cup Series champion. For his part, Truex has sounded increasingly resigned to the fact that his situation might not be as stable as he’d like.

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At the same time, GMS Racing has stepped up its desire to parlay its Truck Series success into a Cup Series presence. There were rumors going around back before Daytona that it might bump its XFINITY Series ride up to Cup, but those never came to pass. More recently, the team bid for the remains of BK Racing only to lose out to Front Row Motorsports.

Buying up Furniture Row Racing would cost a lot more, but GMS Racing would also be getting a lot more, perhaps including Truex and championship-winning crew chief Cole Pearn, increasingly seen as a Chad Knaus-esque star in the making. It also might not need as much outside money since it could bring Allegiant Airlines into the fold — team owner Maury Gallagher is CEO and Chairman of that company — which ironically is what Barney Visser did prior to this year with Furniture Row.

Where does the Chevrolet part come in? Frontstretch reminds us that GMS has long been a Chevy team, something that probably wouldn’t change if it catapults itself into the top NASCAR series by gobbling up Furniture Row Racing. Unless it does, because you can never say never with these things.

In any case, this is now a situation with even more moving pieces that it once seemed and any number of ways it could play out over the coming months. Just know that “Martin Truex Jr., driver of the No. 78 Allegiant Airlines GMS Racing Chevrolet” is a thing that could possibly become reality at some point, and that’s not something you ever would have expected even a few months ago.