5-Hour Energy moves to Martin Truex Jr.'s car for 2018
5-Hour Energy will sponsor Martin Truex Jr. in 2018.
Furniture Row Racing said Sunday the company would sponsor 14 races on Truex’s No. 78 car in 2018. Bass Pro Shops will sponsor 16 and Auto Owner’s Insurance will sponsor six, meaning Furniture Row won’t adorn Truex’s car as a primary sponsor at all next season. That’s a big deal for a team that’s been primarily self-funded since its inception.
5-Hour had two choices for 2018: Sponsor Truex or get out of NASCAR altogether. The company currently sponsors Erik Jones’ No. 77 car for FRR. But the team said earlier in the week the No. 77 wouldn’t run in 2018 as Jones heads over to Joe Gibbs Racing to replace Matt Kenseth in the No. 20 car.
The sponsor deal between 5-Hour and FRR was announced last fall, months before NASCAR announced Monster Energy as its new Cup Series sponsor. 5-Hour was allowed to keep its sponsorship as part of the Monster deal but prevented from moving to another team if it wanted to keep sponsoring someone in the Cup Series.
Truex was the 2017 Cup Series regular season champion and currently leads the series with six wins. Thanks to his win last week at Charlotte he’s already guaranteed to be one of the eight drivers alive in the third round of the playoffs.
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Nick Bromberg is the editor of Dr. Saturday and From the Marbles on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at nickbromberg@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
