A Legacy of Success
Headed by Joe Garone, former Director of NASCAR's Research and Development facilities and Head of Officiating.
Unique in the Racing Industry
The only NASCAR Sprint Cup team west of the Mississippi, located in the heart of beautiful Denver, CO.
More Under the Hood
Engines Supplied by Premier Engine Builder Hendrick Motorsports
Not Your Daddy's Garage
- 35,000 sq. foot facility
- State of the art Seven-Post Testing Machine
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| Regan Smith | ||
| Birthdate: | Sept. 23, 1983 | |
| Hometown: | Cato, NY | |
| Resides: | Mooresville, North Carolina | |
| Height: | 5'9" Weight: 160 lbs. | |
| Spouse: | Single | |
| Children: | None | |
| Hobbies: | Fishing, Video Games & Golf |
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Regan Smith began his career at the age of four racing quarter midget type cars. At the age of 12, he joined the World Kart Association (WKA). In 1996, Regan brought home the WKA Grand National championship trophy. This began the racing career of the Furniture Row Racing Driver.
Early achievements include winning the '99 Allison Legacy Series Championship, Rookie of the year and earning four Sunoco Pole Awards in the USAR Pro Cup Series during the 2000-2001 season. Smith set a USAR record by winning three consecutive Sunoco Pole awards.
Smith made his NASCAR Debut on Oct 20, 2002 as a Busch Series driver. In the same season, he made his NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series debut. He only competed in two races as a Craftsman truck driver in 2002.
In 2003, Smith competed in eighteen Busch races for three different owners. Sixteen of those racing would be under Danny Bost and the other two races would be under John Mcnelly and George deBidart. Smith also set his personal Busch Series best 15th place finish at Texas.
Over the next two seasons, Smith raced in thirty-one Busch events. In that period, he recorded his first top 10 finish in 2006 at the Lowe's Motor Speedway in Charlotte. Under Team Rensi Motorsports, Smith would complete his first full season finishing 20th in driver championship points.
In March of 2007, Smith made his first appearance in the Cup Series. He took on seven Cup races, seventeen Busch races, and ten Craftsman truck races. For the first half of the season, Smith co-drove with veteran Mark Martin in the No. 01 Chevrolet for Ginn Racing. After Ginn racing merged with Dale Earnhardt Inc (DEI), Smith joined DEI, where he captured the Busch pole at Kentucky.
2008 would mark the first full season that Smith would drive in NASCAR's premier Cup series. He drove in 34 of 36 Cup races for DEI. He won the Sprint Cup Rookie of the Year and was the first rookie in Cup history to finish every race he started. Despite not entering two road course races, he finished 34th in points.
October's Cup race at Talladega has been his closest race to winning in the Cup Series. After passing Tony Stewart on the final lap, NASCAR assessed a controversial penalty on Smith for passing Stewart below the yellow line. The win was awarded to Stewart while Smith was relegated to an 18th place finish.
Joe Garone
A native of Denver, Colorado, Joe Garone turned his first wrench in his father's garage when he was only three-years old.
Garone grew up in a racing family where both his parents raced around the local Colorado circuits. His dad raced for years in the Modified Series, and his mom took home several Powder Puff Championships over the years. He, too, raced around the local Colorado circuits for several years while running his father's garage, before going full-time into professional motorsports in 1989.
In 1989, Garone took over as the crew chief for driver Rick Carelli in NASCAR's Southwest and Winston West Tours and the Craftsman Truck Series. After six years with Carelli and hundreds of victories, Garone joined Bill Elliott Racing in 1995 as a suspension specialist and moved up to crew chief for the 1998 season. During his four years with Elliott, the team had 35 top 10 finishes; in 1997, it won the Union 76 World Pit Crew Competition with a time of 20.870 seconds, beating out Hendrick Motorsports and Joe Gibbs Racing.
In 1999, he helped form a new team with PPI Motorsports, where he worked as a program manager and crew chief for the team's two-car Winston Cup effort, which included the No. 32 Tide Ford and the No. 96 McDonald's Ford.
From 2001 through 2003, Garone worked directly for NASCAR. He initially was responsible for building, staffing and running NASCAR's Research and Development Center in Hickory, North Carolina and then moved on to become NASCAR's director of officiating.
After spending a year as the director of competition for Michael Waltrip in 2004, Garone moved to Denver, Colorado where he accepted the position as crew chief for Furniture Row Racing. For two years Garone has been juggling the dual role as both crew chief and manager. In 2007, he was promoted to general manager for Furniture Row Racing and will focus his efforts on overseeing team operations in the various departments, acting as the liaison between Furniture Row Racing and its partners, and continue to support the growth and development of the entire program.
He currently resides in Denver, Colorado with his wife and their three children.
Ryan Coniam
Coniam, 30, a native of Burlington, Ontario (a Toronto suburb) joined Furniture Row Racing in early November following two years as a race engineer at Michael Waltrip Racing (MWR). During his stint at MWR he was the race engineer for Michael McDowell's entry in 2008, and the past year he was liaison between MWR and Germain Racing while overseeing the race engineering duties for driver Max Papis.
Coniam began his engineering Cup career in August 2005 with MB2 Motorsports and worked the following two seasons with the race team, which eventually merged with Dale Earnhardt Inc. A 2000 mechanical engineering graduate from Georgian College in Barrie, Ontario, Coniam is a former sprint car racer in the World of Outlaws and All Star Circuit of Champions series.
