Furniture Row Racing Shutting Down Year After Winning NASCAR Cup Series Title

Furniture Row Racing will close after the 2018 season after failing to land a sponsor for 2019, per Bob Pockrass of ESPN.com. 

Martin Truex Jr. has competed for the team since 2014 and won the Monster Energy Cup Series title last season but this apparently wasn't good enough to keep things going for next year. 

The current sponsor, 5-Hour Energy, opted not to renew its sponsorship for 2019.

"This is not good for anybody," team owner Barney Visser said in a statement. "The numbers just don't add up. I would have to borrow money to continue as a competitive team and I'm not going to do that. This was obviously a painful decision to arrive at knowing how it will affect a number of quality and talented people."

Furniture Row Racing will finish out the year, and Truex has a good chance to defend his title as he currently sits in third place in the latest standings with four wins on the season.

After that, Truex will have to find a new home and Pockrass believes Joe Gibbs Racing is "the most likely possibility."

JGR currently features Kyle Busch, Denny Hamlin, Daniel Suarez and Erik Jones on its team, although one of them could easily be bumped for someone as good as Truex.

Meanwhile, the loss of sponsors has been a significant problem across NASCAR. Monster Energy will return for another year but is not expected to continue past 2019, while notable companies like Lowe's and Target have also left the sport.

The inability for Furniture Row Racing to land a new sponsor could be notable as a deeper issue within the organization.