Furniture Row Racing announced today they will field a long-awaited second team with driver Erik Jones for the 2017 NASCAR Sprint Cup season.
Jones, the defending NASCAR Camping World Truck Series champion and current Xfinity Series rookie for Joe Gibbs Racing, will have sponsorship from 5-Hour Energy on board the No. 77 Toyota Camry for 22 races. The team is also looking for additional sponsorship as well as a charter to buy or lease to guarantee Jones entry in all of the events next season.
“It’s hard to say I’m not excited but anxious at the same time, anxious for this day, and excited to be here,” said Jones. “It’s pretty cool for me to be partnered up with Furniture Row and be part of them growing and part of 5-Hour, too. To have such a big company like that be partnered with me is pretty cool this early in my racing career and something I’ve always wanted. Just a good fit all around.”
Jones, who is currently under contract with Joe Gibbs Racing, is signed to a one-year deal, but team owner Barney Visser said the team could extend that deal further.
“We’ve been sort of preparing for this for a long time,” said Visser. “We’re very excited to have all the components of a second race team pulled together here. It’s all come together in the last month.
“To find a driver like Erik, a sponsor like 5-Hour Energy, along with our technical agreement with Gibbs, we think we’re going to be able to run right up where we need to run. We’re very excited to get it all pulled together here.”
The team has yet to decide on a crew chief, and another matter is how the team will obtain one of the 36 available charters for next season.
“There’s several charters out there that we’re hearing are available. We’ve been looking at it some,” said Visser. “We’re not exactly sure where we’re going to be on that. We are going to get a charter, but we’re not sure who we’re going to get it from yet.”
The Denver, Colorado-base Furniture Row Racing is one of the few NASCAR teams not located in the Charlotte, North Carolina area where most of the current teams are based. The team currently shares a technical alliance with JGR, essentially making them a fourth team for Gibbs.
Jones first made headlines in 2012 when he beat Kyle Busch to win the prestigious Snowball Derby Super Late Model race. Busch then signed Jones to drive for his truck series team in 2013, where he collected his first victory at Phoenix in November, becoming the youngest driver to ever win a NASCAR race.
Joe Gibbs Racing added Jones to the Xfinity Series roster in 2014, going full time in 2016. Jones has five wins in the Xfinity Series including three so far this season. He also has three Sprint Cup Series starts for Joe Gibbs Racing.
In 2017, Jones will be among a large crop of young drivers that have risen up through the feeder system in the last year, including Chase Elliott, Ryan Blaney, Kyle Larson and Austin Dillon, with varying degrees of success, but Jones believes he’s ready to compete at the Cup level.
“I felt like last year I learned a lot in the few starts I made. At the end of the day I’m as ready as I can be,” said Jones. “At some point you got to make that jump. You’re going to sink or swim. Like I said, I think I’m in the best situation to hopefully swim and be successful at it.
“There’s going to be a lot to learn for sure. There’s going to be ups and downs throughout the year. I think at the end of it all we’re going to be in a good position, and I think we’ll be able to have speed at it and hopefully be competitive throughout the year.”
http://accesswdun.com/article/2016/8/431683/erik-jones-to-second-furniture-row-toyota-in-2017