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Furniture Row Racing Enters 10th Season On NASCAR Sprint Cup Tour

Martin Truex Jr, driver of the #78 Furniture Row Chevrolet, answers questions from the media as Cole Pearn (L), crew chief of the #78 Furniture Row Chevrolet, and Joe Garone (R), general manager of Furniture Row Racing, look on during day 4 of the Charlotte Motor Speedway NASCAR Media Tour.  [Credit: Jared C. Tilton/NASCAR via Getty Images]

 

Charlotte, NC— Furniture Row Racing opened its tenth season in competition on the NASCAR Sprint Cup circuit by announcing an additional associate sponsor to the media members gathered for the Charlotte Motor Speedway Media Tour presented by Technocom.

Visser Precision, an advanced manufacturing solutions provider, will appear on the roof of the #78 Chevrolets driven by Martin Truex Jr. with new crew chief Cole Pearn for the 2015 season.

“It’s been a long ten years but it has been a lot of fun and rewarding. We’ve had a lot of highs and a lot of lows and whenever you are involved with a program when it started from scratch and get to grow it, it becomes really satisfying to get where we are at right now,” Team Manager Joe Garrone told the audience, “I don’t think we went through what we went through last season at any point in those ten years and for what we are facing right now we have a lot of excitement for this year. We worked really hard on cars during the off-season and we ended last year on a bit of a roll by getting better finishes. The cars were making a lot more sense to Martin (Truex) so we went into the off season feeling exciting about what we have coming here in 2015”

“We made some personnel changes and Cole Pearn is coming in as the crew chief. Cole has been with us for several years and he worked with Todd Berrier for eight or nine years and he is ready to have the reigns,” Garrone continued.

“This was something I have been preparing for the last few years. It’s been in my mind that this day would come and I tried to take steps beforehand for when it came,” Pearn stated describing his rise to the crew chief role, “It’s just making the final transition now and I’m looking forward to it.”

Furniture Row Racing will maintain its technical alliance with Richard Childress Racing and Martin Truex Jr., set to enter his second season as the team’s driver, said perceptions of the organization being a one car team aren’t really accurate.

“I don’t see us as a one car team really, “Truex stated, “We have teammates with RCR and their other allied teams and that worked well for us last year. Because of some of the things we did or didn’t do right, we couldn’t really take advantage of that team atmosphere but I thought it really worked well and the process is in place to take advantage of that if we do things right and we could see that at the end of last season.”

“The last year and a half has been tough and we are kind of at the end of what I felt like was the rough road and we’re looking for some smoother roads,” Truex continued, “With things going on with my personal life and the race team it was tough last year and I’m really looking forward to this year. We saw some gains with Cole (Pearn) coming on as the crew chief and we learned a lot about each other and about the race cars and what we need to do to be stronger and be more consistent. I feel good about the changes to the car coming this year and I feel they really suit me better as a driver and the new rules are more similar to stuff I’ve run well in the past with.”

Truex’s longtime girlfriend Sherry Pollex has battled ovarian cancer over the past year and a recent positive prognosis in that ordeal has inspired Truex for the 2015 season.

“Sherry has finished with her chemo, “Truex sincerely stated, “She finished on Monday which is great and we had a little celebration for her. She’s feeling good and it seems like every day she is getting more back to normal and it’s only been four days. Hopefully in the next couple days she’s going to be back to her old self and it’s been great to see. It was a tough road and obviously it had its challenges but all in all she did just an amazing job. She’s special and the way she has been able to get through it like no had ever done before is impressive and inspiring. It’s going to make me work harder that’s for sure.”

 

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