2015 Reviews: Furniture Row Racing
Welcome to our 2015 reviews. Instead of going driver-by-driver we’re going to review teams this year. We’re starting from the bottom of the standings and working our way up. The last of the single-car teams is up next.
Driver (standings in parenthesis): Martin Truex Jr. (4th)
Highlights: Truex got back to victory lane for the first time since 2013 with his win at Pocono in June. It was also Furniture Row Racing’s first win since the team went to victory lane with Regan Smith in the 2011 Southern 500.
The win was one of eight top-five finishes and 22 top-10 finishes Truex had on the season. He began the year with seven-straight top 10s and didn’t finish outside the top 30 until he crashed at Sonoma and finished 42nd.
Oh, we should also mention that Truex made the final round of the Chase in his first Chase appearance since 2012. He finishd in the top 15 in every Chase race and was inside the top 10 five times.
Lowlights: For as good as Truex’s Chase was, it wasn’t good enough.
He got to the final round because he didn’t have any bad finishes. It’s the perfect recipe for Chase advancement. But when it was heads-up in the final round with Kyle Busch, Kevin Harvick and Jeff Gordon, Truex was the slowest of the four. A late-race tire strategy play didn’t work and he finished 12th.
He also had a bit of a late regular season swoon. After 14 top 10s in the first 15 races, he finished outside the top 10 eight times in the next 11 races.
Overview: If you can’t beat them, join them, right?
It would have been the height of irony if Truex would have beaten Kyle Busch at Homestead. Why? Because Furniture Row is joining Toyota in 2016 and teaming with Joe Gibbs Racing for a technical alliance. The team wouldn’t be making the move if it didn’t think it was going to improve performance, and we’re sure the idea of beating the team you’re upgrading to elicited a few smiles in the Furniture Row shop over the last months of 2015.
Can FRR sustain the gains it made in 2015? That’s the big question. The team definitely figured something out with the 2015 rules. How much is applicable to the new 2016 rules? In the limited low-downforce sample size of 2015’s low downforce races, Truex finished 17th and ninth.
FRR should definitely be in the mix for a Chase spot again, especially if Joe Gibbs Racing remains at the top of the Sprint Cup Series mountain. Will Truex advance to Homestead again? Well, if he can avoid bad finishes once again, anything is possible.
Previous Reviews: Team Penske, Richard Childress Racing, Chip Ganassi Racing, Michael Waltrip Racing, Richard Petty Motorsports, Roush Fenway Racing, JTG-Daugherty Racing and Germain Racing, HScott Motorsports, Front Row Motorsports, BK Racing and Tommy Baldwin Racing.
