Furniture Row Racing will "return to a one-car team" in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series next season, according to Jim Utter of MOTORSPORT.com. In an interview on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio’s "Dialed In" show on Thursday, FRR Owner Barney Visser said that he has already "sold the charter of his No. 77 Toyota team to another NASCAR organization." Visser: "It’s being sold right now, but we think there are going to be a lot of charters on the market. For now, we’re not going to try to run the thing. I just don’t want to run a place-holder in a charter kind of race car." Visser "declined to disclose to what organization he sold the No. 77 charter." However, he said that he was "confident he could obtain another charter if he wished to return to a two-car organization." FRR "expanded to a two-car team" this season, getting rookie driver Erik Jones on loan from Joe Gibbs Racing to run its No. 77 along with Martin Truex Jr. in its No. 78 (MOTORSPORT.com, 9/14).
BUILDING FOR THE FUTURE: NASCAR President Brent Dewar said of the future of charters, "The charter was really designed to allow a mechanism to create long-term enterprise value for team owners. To allow them to transition from one owner to the next." He added, "We entered into a five-year agreement to give them some stability to finance and bank. The same applies to team owners. Prior to that it was really a liquidation." Dewar: "If we didn't have charters and we didn't have this collaboration we have with the industry, we wouldn't have had a mechanism to be able to do this and so it's growing. I'm very proud of it and it's given us an opportunity to build for the future." He said, "These are our business partners and we're working hard to recognize some of the economic challenges to make racing. I would say the operative word is we're not looking for cost reduction, we're looking to take wast out of the system" ("NASCAR on NBC Podcast," NBCSPORTS.com, 9/11).
