The No. 77 car will be on track in 2018, but it won’t be fielded by Furniture Row Racing.
While talking to SiriusXM NASCAR Radio’s Clair B. Lang on Thursday, FRR owner Barney Visser said that his team won’t run the No. 77 again next year. The car currently is driven by Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series rookie Erik Jones, but he will move to Joe Gibbs Racing after 2017 to replace Matt Kenseth.
“I don’t want to run a placeholder in a charter kind of a race car. I just don’t want to do that,” Visser told Lang. “That’s not in our DNA and I don’t want to put the guys through that. If we put a car on the track it’s going to be capable of going to the front.”
Visser, when asked whether there was a particular team interested in buying the charter, or if FRR had received multiple offers, revealed that it already has been unloaded. He added that he and the team are confident that they’ll be able to purchase another charter if they decide they want to run a second car alongside Martin Truex Jr.’s No. 78.
AUDIO: @FRRacingTeam team owner Barney Visser tells @ClaireBLang that the #77 charter has already been sold. It doesn't look good for 2018: pic.twitter.com/a9M16vRGEm
— SiriusXM NASCAR Radio (Ch. 90) (@SiriusXMNASCAR) September 15, 2017
“Oh, right now? It’s sold,” Visser said. “It’s all contracted for right now, but we know we can get another one so it’s not a big deal.”
It’s not yet clear what team will run the No. 77 in 2018, as Visser said he couldn’t yet disclose that information.
Thumbnail photo via Kyle Terada/USA TODAY Sports Images
