JOE GIBBS
King of pro sports.
- Photo by: K. Ma/NYAR
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NEW YORK, NY (December 4, 2002) - NEW YORK, NY - "Coach" Joe Gibbs, one of the most recognizable names in all pro-sports, received another title as a team owner after Tony Stewart delivered him his second Winston Cup title (1st - Bobby Labonte in 2000, plus 3 Super Bowl Championships as Washington Redskins' Head Coach in his football days). The NFL Hall-of-Famer, now a NASCAR great, talked to me about his feelings on his second championship during Champion's Week at Midtown's 21 Club:
KEVIN MA: So coach, what are the differences when you compare Bobby Labonte's championship two years ago to Tony's title this year?
JOE GIBBS: The year was totally different. When you look at Bobby here, he was so consistent, he missed nine laps out of every lap that we ran here, and that's phenomenal. No DNFs. The #20 car this year, we started out Daytona, we finished dead last after we blew a motor four laps in, and we had six DNFs with this car, so it was a very hard fought year for everybody in Winston Cup, and there are a lot of things happened all year long. Bobby was here [winning the title in 2000] because of his consistency and it was a dream year; and this year, we were overcoming a lot of things that happened. Of course this is a whole different set of characters, we've got Zippy [Greg Zipadelli] as the crew chief and he is like a coach, then you've got Tony and a whole different group of guys working on that car, so that's the fun part of winning the championship.
KM: The championship went down the wire where Tony needed to finish 22nd or above to hold of Mark Martin for the title. What was the mindset for the team late in the season, especially during the last race at Homestead?
JG: Nervous. Everybody was nervous. I know I was. There are so many things that happened in motorsports. You break a piece and you break a part that we had during the year -- Richmond race we broke a rear-end gear that we haven't broken one in 12 years, that was another 100 points that ran down. That's the example, in motorsports, things can happen in a heartbeat, you break something and you are out. Somebody else can make a mistake and have a wreck, you may get caught up in it. That race [season finale], going back to it, it started out good, but it went bad in the middle there. We went down a lap when Mark was on the lead lap, and it looked like it was going to be a gas-mileage race. We weren't doing well in gas-mileage, but he was, so it was very very nerve wrecking. Tony got back on the lead lap and then finished like that, so it had a lot of emotion in that last race.
KM: This year's championship was one of the closest championships in recent years. Did you do anything different for the team this year to help Tony to chase down the Winston Cup title?
JG: Actually, what's happening in motorsports, like most pro sports, it changes rapidly -- the whole sport does. There are so many different things -- our race shop, when we first raced 12 years ago, had 17 people, and now we have 200. It's a rapidly changing sport -- just like football, the NFL. I said the NFL changes roughly 30% of the year, and I said it's a bit more over here. You constantly changing, adding people here and there. Now we have 12 engineers, we didn't have 1 eight years ago. So, when you say what's changed, I'd say everything, because you are going so fast, so hard, and this year we are changing cars totally [2003, Joe Gibbs Racing will switch from Pontiac to Chevrolet], these are just some of the examples of the way the sport changes and goes very quick, so every year is totally different.
