Joe Gibbs
Joe Gibbs leaves football behind, back in racing full-time.
Exclusive interview by Ron Lemasters Jr.
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Since 1992, Joe Gibbs Racing has been one of the elite teams in the NASCAR Sprint Cup garage, amassing 60 victories at the time of this writing and laying claim to series championships in 2002 and 2005 with ONMC Charter Member Tony Stewart.
Team founder Joe Gibbs had an interesting little side job before he became one of NASCAR's best team owners: Hall of Fame football coach of the NFL's Washington Redskins. He won three Super Bowls with the Redskins and returned to coach the team the last four seasons, but retired again following the 2007 season.
J.D. Gibbs, who played college football like his father and brother Coy, stepped in as president of JGR in 1997, and continues in that role today. Coy Gibbs followed his father into the other family business, as an assistant coach.
Since Joe is back in the office full-time and J.D. is firmly entrenched with the race teams as president, 2008 has been an interesting season for the team. We sat down with father and son to talk about that, about the switch to Toyota this year after 16 seasons as a member of the General Motors family and some other items of interest...
Q: Why, late last year, did you decide to go to Toyota for 2008 and beyond?
J.D. GIBBS: "I think GM's got four really strong teams. And I think obviously there are certain things we think we'd like to have a leadership role in. I think this gives us that leadership role. We had a good partnership there. Going forward, this year and next year three years, five years down the road, all of these things kind of come back into play. 'What is the best fit for us?' And I keep coming back to this. I really feel the burden of our 400 employees. All the families that work here, we want to make sure they can stay here for their whole careers. And for me, I think the key to doing that is performance, week in and week out. And there are certain things we can do with Toyota that we'll have a little more of a leadership role in. I think for us it was just the right decision and the right time."
Q: Joe, when you retired from pro football, what brought you back to NASCAR?
JOE GIBBS: "I just want to say that if something goes wrong this year in Washington then it wasn't my fault! It will be my fault if something goes wrong here with my race team. In all honesty, it was a thrill to be able to go back to Washington to coach the Redskins again, but now I'm glad to be back at home in racing. I'm just looking forward to getting back to racing. It was the right time. I came down after we lost the playoff game, and I think, visiting with J.D. and Pat and I praying about it, and Coy (his son) has his new venture in motocross, I really felt like we prayerfully went through the decision to go to Washington and I felt like we prayerfully went through with everybody the decision for me to step out and come back to racing."
Q: What is your role going to be now that you're back?
JOE GIBBS: "My role here will be, they're going to roll me into the corner (laughs). I didn't grow up technically in the racing end of it, so where I've always felt like I fit the best is in the team around here. Obviously, they didn't miss me much, judging by the way they've taken off the last four years. I felt like my role has always been one of trying to work with the sponsors, not being a technical person, to keep the resources coming and to help pick the people, because you win up here with people."
J.D. GIBBS: "We still haven't figured out how much of a pay-cut he's going to have to take. (laughing). We know it's going to be a big pay-cut for him and he's going to have to get used to dropping a couple of zeroes off of what he expects to make now that he's back in racing full-time. Dad will have to coach for an extra five years to afford Tony's contract - on top of Kyle and Denny's."
Q: How has Kyle Busch impacted your race team this year? He had a reputation of being sort of a wild-card.
JOE GIBBS: "I kind of got the impression in talking to Kyle...first of all, he's very bright, but he also had a humble spirit about him. He'd say things like, 'hey, I think I made some mistakes. There're some things I'd like to correct.' I think we kind of hit it off. Obviously, he's very talented, we all knew that. Our drivers, Denny and Tony, played a role in that. We wouldn't bring somebody in that they weren't excited about."
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