Barney Visser

Barney Visser
Born 1949 (age 65–66)
Nationality American
Occupation Furniture Row co-owner
Furniture Row Racing owner

Barney Visser (born 1949) is the co-owner of Furniture Row as well as Furniture Row Racing in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series.[1] Furniture Row Racing, based in Denver, Colorado is one of a few Sprint Cup teams not based in North Carolina.[1]

Personal life

Visser graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School.[1] He volunteered in the Vietnam War for 21 months after high school, and he served as a paratrooper for 11 months in the 173rd Airborne Brigade between July 1968 and June 1969.[2] Visser and his wife Carolyn have seven children.[2]

Furniture

He started manufacturing big poof pillows.[1] He owned eight stores called Pillow Kingdom in 1977, when he decided to start his first waterbed store called Big Sur Waterbeds.[1] That company was so successful that he changed the whole company into waterbed stores.[1] He estimates that the company held 85 stores in the mid-1980s.[1] He has owned stores under the Denver Mattress, Sofa Mart, Oak Express and Bedroom Expressions names.[1]

Racing

Visser decided to retire from his businesses, so he started racing at Colorado National Speedway as a hobby.[1] He met Jerry Robertson, and the two decided to form a NASCAR Busch Series (now Nationwide Series) team.[1]

Visser started his NASCAR team in 2005,[1] and has raced 54 races in the Sprint Cup Series, and 19 races with Jerry Robertson driving his Busch Series car (as of June 26, 2008).[3] Joe Nemechek got his team's first pole position at the spring Talladega Superspeedway race in 2008.[3] and Regan Smith got the team's first win at the 2011 Showtime Southern 500.

Media

He is the co-author of the book Vietnam: Fresh, Positive Insights for all who Suffered Loss in the Vietnam War (ISBN 978-0966404999) in November 2000.[2]

Visser was the executive producer for the movie Uncle Nino.[4]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 1.9 1.10 Chambers, Mike (2008-06-04). "Furniture Row boss races into NASCAR". Denver Post. Archived from the original on 8 June 2008. Retrieved 2008-06-27.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Hartt, Joe; Visser, Barney (November 2000). Vietnam: Fresh Positive Insights For All Who Suffered Loss in the Vietnam War. Premiere Publishing Co. ISBN 978-0-9664049-9-9.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 "Barney Visser NASCAR owner's statistics". Racing Reference.info. Retrieved 2008-06-27.
  4. ↑ "Denver-backed movie gets distribution date". Denver Business Journal. 2005-01-24. Retrieved 2008-06-27.

External links