In NASCAR’s final three races, Denver’s Furniture Row Racing still has much to compete for. Granted, the excruciating pain and severe disappointment from a playoff-eliminating blown engine lingers, crew chief Cole Pearn said, but the team still can finish first in three major categories.
The Martin Truex Jr.-driven No. 78 Toyota — which won two of the first three playoff races but was eliminated from the Chase with a blown-engine and last-place finish Oct. 23 at Talladega — leads the Sprint Cup series in laps led (1,743), is tied for first in wins (four) and is second in poles (five).
Despite the blown engine — the team’s first of the season — Pearn said he and his crew are excited to stamp FRR as the circuit’s winningest team over the 36-race season. The series competes Sunday at Texas Motor Speedway and Nov. 13 at Phoenix International Raceway before the Nov. 20 finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
“Blowing up at Talladega was a tough one to swallow but winning and leading the most laps — and sitting on five poles — is really hard to do,” Pearn said. “There are so many good things, good stats, good moments, throughout the year. At the end of the day, there’s plenty of things that you can hang your hat on and be proud of.
“But right now it’s motivation that pushes us through to the end. We all just want to go to the next race, show people that we’re still here and what we’re capable of. When the dust settles we can look ourselves in the mirror and know we gave it our best shot, and feel proud of that.”
Truex is in a five-way tie in race wins. Kyle Busch, Kevin Harvick, Jimmie Johnson and Brad Keselowski also have four. Truex, Harvick and Johnson are the only ones with multiple Chase victories, with two apiece. They have combined to win six of the seven playoff races.
Truex has dominated in laps led with 1,743 — 367 more than No. 2 Busch and more than 1,000 ahead of Chase points leader Johnson. Carl Edwards leads in winning poles with six.
Truex won his fifth pole last weekend at Martinsville, where he went on to finish seventh.
“Coming back like we did after what happened in Talladega the week before shows the true character of this team,” Truex said in a team release. “You can’t turn back time and you can’t change the past. I felt all year like this was a championship caliber team and we should be there (Chase). Winning is important, we won two races in the Chase, but we’re not in it anymore and we have to face that reality. The rules are the rules and thatap the way it was set up when it started. All we can do now is do the best we can.”
FRR, which advanced to NASCAR’s final four last season before finishing fourth in the standings, will introduce a new car at Texas. The investment from owner Barney Visser of Cherry Hills hasn’t wavered since the blown engine.
“We’re stocked and ready for this final push. We have assembled a lot of good, new stuff over the last few weeks, to make sure we would make it,” Pearn said. “We are way ahead of where we were a year ago. That’s the good thing about last year — we learned what we need to do better and I’m really proud of the things we have lined up.”
