The first number to roll off John Parks’ tongue isn’t 18, the number of NASCAR Cup championships Denver’s Furniture Row Racing, The Little Shop That Could, takes into its final weekend. It isn’t 15, the number of Cup pole positions snared by the only NASCAR team headquartered west of the Mississippi River. Or 307, the number of Cup starts.
It’s five.
As in grandchildren.
The ones born during the 13-plus years Parks has worked for the only NASCAR team headquartered west of the Mississippi River. The team that’s known for almost three months — although Parks had it pegged for quite a bit longer than that — that it’s closing its doors after Sunday.
“There are many people that have come and gone over the 13, 14 years I’ve been here,” sighed Parks, director of transportation at Furniture Row Racing, whose No. 78 Toyota, driven by Martin Truex Jr., is one of four competing Sunday for the 2018 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup during the Ford EcoBoost 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway in South Florida.
“You know, sometimes you get sad. And it turns to angry. Or vice versa. A lot of memories. A lot of people. I’ll remember a lot of friendships.”
Parks, who hails from Arvada, retired from the Marines after 20 years in the corps, joining the then-nascent Denver racing team in 2005 and riding it through every twist and left turn.
“I’ve worked for two people my whole life,” Parks said. “I’ve worked for Uncle Sam and I’ve worked for Barney Visser.”
Visser, the Denver entrepreneur and FRR founder, announced in September that the shop — home to NASCAR’s defending Cup champs — was closing, citing increased costs, a struggle to renew its technical alliance with Joe Gibbs Racing, and the loss of a critical sponsor, 5-Hour Energy.
All of which cast a pall on what was other setting up to be one of the sunniest 11 months of Park’s life, a company man bouncing from the celebrations for FRR’s 2017 NASCAR title in Las Vegas to commemorating his 30th wedding anniversary to a visit to the White House to … a layoff.
“It’s like going from Mach 1,” Parks said, “to zero.”
And the emotional whiplash is going to be felt for a while.
“It’s hard not for it to be bittersweet,” FRR president Joe Garone told The Denver Post. “But what you try to do is just put that behind you and just stay focused on the goal.”
The comfort is the goal; The Chase for the Cup, the distraction. With its dying breaths, FRR can become the first Cup team to notch back-to-back titles since Hendrick Motorsports won five in a row with Jimmie Johnson from 2006-10. Truex is one of four drivers competing Sunday for the 2018 championship, along with Kyle Busch, Kevin Harvick and Joey Logano. The crown will go to whichever of the four finishes ahead of the other three, regardless of their overall position in the race. Truex is aiming to become just the 16th driver in NASCAR history to win multiple Cup series titles.
“Well, I’ve learned some things since we’ve been racing out of the central hub, and one of those things — which is common sense, now that I’ve actually lived it — is that performance takes care of everything,” Garone said. “If you can win races and compete for championships, you will attract the best people in the industry — especially if you do it on a consistent basis.”
In Truex and crew chief Cole Pearn, both of whom will join Gibbs Racing in 2019, FRR boasted two of the best — the wind beneath the wings of 59 top-five and 99 top-10 finishes since 2015, a pair that proved that NASCAR titles could be won by a team outside the circuit’s Carolinas hub.
“I’d do it (again) in a heartbeat,” Garone said. “It can be done (out west). It would be extremely tricky to do it from California, or much more west of California.
“The things we’ve done could’ve been a fit in several states. I lived in North Carolina and raced there for more than a dozen years. And I’ve raced outside that area. And by being outside that hub, you’re kind of in your own world … you’re kind of out there on an island, and you take care of each other. And I really liked that aspect of it, so what goes on in Denver stayed with Denver. A lot of what (went) on, you didn’t have to share with other race teams.”
But being a lone wolf, and a successful one at that, wasn’t enough to sustain operations once 5-Hour Energy pulled out.
“It left a hole — a gaping hole,” Garone recalled. “All of this went down over a period of time which left me two months to go and find a massive amount of money.
“I believe we would’ve found it (eventually), but it’s also not my money we’d be gambling with in case we didn’t. You can’t sign contracts with people in the coming years thinking you’ve got the money. You’ve got to know (it’s there) … in some ways, it was the perfect storm that led to (the shutdown).
“I’m going through all the same emotions as the guys. Part of it is the satisfaction I have is the knowledge that you built something from scratch and the joy of watching it and watching it grow and checking all the boxes and winning a (Cup) championship. And while I feel very distraught about the end of what had taken so long to build, I’m very optimistic about what the next adventure will be.”
Garone estimated that of the current 63 FRR staffers, he expects that 25 of them — fewer than 40 percent — will remain in greater Denver. But he plans to be among the group that remains in town for the wind-down over the course of the next few weeks.
Parks is sticking around too, although he joked that he’s had to learn how to put his first resume together at the age of 52. Although, all things considered, tapping out a LinkedIn profile is easy. It’s watching the curtain fall at Homestead-Miami, after all those trophies, all those grandkids and all those memories, that’s the tough part.
“It’s bittersweet, for sure,” Hart said. “Because we’ve all been living this dream for so long. (Winning) would be the ultimate mike drop. For sure.”
Truex’s Pre Furniture Row Racing Record (2004-2013) |
Furniture Row Racing Record (2014-present) |
|
|---|---|---|
| Starts: 476 | 297 | 179 |
| Wins: 19 | 2 | 17 |
| Top 5s: 86 | 31 | 55 |
| Top 10s: 180 | 90 | 90 |
| Poles: 19 | 7 | 12 |
| Laps lead: 7515 | 1889 | 5626 |
| Playoff appearances: 6 | 2 | 4 |
| Championship 4 appearances: 3 | 0 | 3 |
| Source: Furniture Row Racing |
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