Nemechek signs three-year deal with Furniture Row
By Jeff Gluck
Saturday, November 03, 2007
FORT WORTH, Texas - Joe Nemechek signed a three-year contract to drive for Furniture Row Racing, the team and driver said Saturday morning.
Nemechek joined the team at the Fontana race in September and has qualified the car into eight of the 10 events he has attempted. Prior to Nemechek's arrival, the team had made it into just 10 of 24 races.
"This team has come a long way since I came over here," Nemechek said.
"It's neat seeing how if you give people a certain direction to go in, how they start excelling."
Nemechek, who began the season driving for Ginn Racing, made six straight events with Furniture Row before failing to qualify at Charlotte and Martinsville.
"When we missed that race at Charlotte, it sort of made everybody open their eyes and say, 'OK, where did we miss it at?'" he said. "The engineers had to go to work and everybody's been working their tails off trying to figure out how to make things better."
The performance is improving, he said, but it would improve even more if the team expanded to two cars. Team officials eventually want to expand to a second car.
As for trying to make the races as a team from outside the top 35 in owner points, Nemechek described it as "brutal."
"It's just the most pressure-packed thing I've ever done," he said. "When you come in and a team's that far behind, it's hard to catch up. I'm looking forward to getting a new start next year."
