Barney Visser was born in 1949 and is currently the co-owner of Furniture Row, a successful mattress and sofa company, as well as Furniture Row Racing which is part of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. Furniture Row Racing, is based in Denver, Colorado. and is one of a few Sprint Cup teams not based in North Carolina.
After volunteering for Vietnam in 1967 and serving as a paratrooper rigging parachutes, he used the Army GI bill to attend University of Northern Colorado where he walked on to the football team, despite not playing in high school. He earned a scholarship and played on the defensive line in 1970.
Barney Visser’s business started with the creation of big poof pillows. In 1977, he already owned eight Pillow Kingdom stores. Eventually, he launched Big Sur Waterbeds which is considered as his first waterbed store. By the mid-1980′s, the company already held 85 stores. Visser has also owned stores under the names of Oak Express, Bedroom Expressions, Sofa Mart, and Denver Mattress. He introduced the retail world to big, poofy pillows in the 1970s (Pillow Kingdom) and waterbeds in the 1980s (Big Sur), and when those fads faded, he founded four other specialized furniture stores that ultimately became Furniture Row, which has grown to 75 centers nationally. After his retirement from the business, he began racing at the Colorado National Speedway. Along with Jerry Robertson, they formed the NASCAR Busch Series team which is now known as the Nationwide Series. In 2005, he began his NASCAR team and to date, has already participated in 54 races of the Sprint Cup Series. He currently lives in Colorado with his wife Carolyn, and is a father to nine (9) grown children.
Visser was first introduced to race cars in the 1990s, at a school in Arizona. At the time, he thought about getting into racing when he was ready to retire from the furniture business, where he made a fortune. He never knew the people he met at Colorado National Speedway, primarily legendary driver Jerry Robertson, would lead to his NASCAR Cup team
Colossians 3:23 “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters,…”