NASCAR Rumors & Nostalgia on Instagram

Did you know that: -For 2018, initial plans were for Christopher Bell to take Erik Jones seat in the 77. Jones was moving from Furniture Row to Gibbs in the 20 car, replacing Matt Kenseth. But the infamous crash between Kyle Busch and Martin Truex Jr happened at Indianapolis that August, starting the downfall in the relationship between Joe Gibbs and Barney Visser. Instead, Furniture Row would shut down their 2nd team for 2018 after just one season, and Bell would go full time in the 20 Xfinity car before finally jumping to Cup full time in 2020 for Leavine Family Racing (ironically using many old parts that FRR used in their time). Part of the JGR-FRR alliance contract stated that once done with the parts, any part of the car with a JGR part number had to go back to Gibbs. Many of those parts that were still good end up being sold to LFR when they switched to Toyota in 2019. LFR itself would only last until the end of 2020 when the team’s assets were sold to Spire Motorsports, after COVID financially hit the team hard. -On top of that, FRR apparently had been making plans to switch to Chevy, with a Hendrick alliance. Everyone on the team was on board with it including MTJ and Cole Pearn, but Toyota would not let go of Truex, eventually leading to Furniture Row to forever stay under the Toyota banner. -That day at Indianapolis in 2017 may have been the beginning of the end for FRR. Some from the team say that Joe Gibbs was so livid that he was getting beat by his own equipment, he kept raising the costs for Furniture Row until it was simply too much, causing the Denver, CO based team to shut its doors at the end of 2018. submitted by /u/Equivalent_Dish_1990 [link] [comments]