Gibbs Simply Keeps Making the Rounds

Joe Gibbs was in town this week, promoting his book, “Racing to Win,” attending the Christian Book Sellers Assn. conference and meeting with sponsors.

“Sometimes it seems that meeting and getting sponsors is the way I spend most of my time, but that’s what you have to do these days in NASCAR,” said the former Super Bowl-winning coach who became a NASCAR team owner and won the Winston Cup championship in 2000.

Gibbs’ No. 18 Interstate Batteries car, driven by Bobby Labonte, has 18 corporate sponsors; his No. 20 Home Depot car, driven by Tony Stewart, has 10.

“As an owner, my job is to get the right people together, get them the right equipment and keep finding and satisfying sponsors. Without sponsors, you couldn’t exist in NASCAR, not if you wanted to win, or even compete.

“The sport has grown so quickly. When we formed our team in 1991, we had 17 people. Today we have 200 overall. We have almost as many engineers as we had people back then. We have six 18-wheelers for our four drivers [Labonte and Stewart in Winston Cup, Mike McLaughlin in Busch and his son, Coy Gibbs, in trucks] and we go to around 50 races a year.

“It’s a logistical nightmare, coming and going. Like this week, after the race Sunday in Chicago, we tested Monday and Tuesday in Indianapolis and must be at Loudon [N.H.] to get ready for this Sunday’s race.

“And it takes sponsors to keep it all flowing. That’s my job, to sell them on Joe Gibbs Racing and then keep them happy. On any Cup weekend, I’ll visit at least half a dozen sponsor groups with our drivers, Bobby to some and Tony to some. That takes up most of Sunday mornings before the guys have to get ready to race.”

The Indy test was the first time the team was able to compare Pontiacs and Chevrolets. Gibbs announced last Sunday that his team was leaving Pontiac and returning to Chevrolet.

“We’ll see how the tests go. If the Chevrolet is ready, we may run them as soon as the Brickyard 400 [Aug. 4]. If not, for sure next season.”

Why the change, after Labonte won the championship a year ago and Stewart is third in points this season?

“It’s a matter of numbers. We want to know where we stand in relation to other teams. Last year, after several Pontiac teams joined Dodge, there were only a couple of us left. We feel that by using Chevrolets we will get a better feedback on how we compare with other top teams like Hendrick [Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson, Terry Labonte], Childress [Kevin Harvick, Robby Gordon] and Earnhardt [Dale Jr., Michael Waltrip, Steve Park].”

The subtitle of Gibbs’ book, “Establish Your Game Plan for Success,” is the essence of the book, written with Ken Abraham. In its 287 pages ($21.99, Multnomah Publishers, 2002), it contains the keys Gibbs used to climb from a hot-rodding teenager in Santa Fe Springs to the heights of America’s two most popular sports, professional football and NASCAR stock car racing.

Most of it with a heavy flavoring of God’s help.

Gibbs is a devout Christian who believes in telling his story and if he ever decided to follow a third career, it could easily be as a preacher in the manner of Billy Graham. The book is No. 6 on the Christian best seller list.

Biblical references and principles intermingle with tales of locker room life as a football coach and the rough-and-tumble 200-mph world of auto racing.

“To be successful in football or racing, or in life, one needs a good game plan,” Gibbs said. “Life is not an exhibition game or a dress rehearsal. This is the real deal, and following the game plan is not optional. Here’s the bottom line: There is a God, and He has drawn up the perfect game plan for your life.”

Gibbs gives full credit to the Lord for his successes, as when he writes, after Labonte won the Winston Cup crown, “The Lord gave us a great year.”

Left unsaid was what kind of year the Lord gave Hut Stricklin or Kyle Petty or any of the other 40-odd drivers who didn’t win.

The book, although full of stock car racing anecdotes, never mentions that Gibbs fielded a powerful National Hot Rod Assn. drag racing team from 1994 to 2000.

Gibbs made the stunning move from Super Bowl to Winston Cup because he felt it was a better place to keep his family together. His sons, J.D. and Coy, are now integral parts of Joe Gibbs Racing, J.D. as president of JGR and Coy as coordinator of memorabilia sales.

Coy also drives in the Craftsman Truck series.

“One always worries for his drivers, where they are on the track, are they safe or did they get hurt in an accident, but when it’s your own flesh and blood, it’s more than that. It’s downright scary when you’ve just watched Tony and Bobby going 188 [mph] at Daytona and then see your own son going 189 in a truck on the same track. I almost panicked.”

Coy Gibbs, who was a linebacker in football at Stanford, has two third-place finishes this year and is 10th in the truck points.

Gibbs says one of the questions he is most asked is which was more difficult, winning three Super Bowls or the Winston Cup championship.

“First, I reiterate that both are team sports,” he said. “Then I tell them it took me two years to win my first Super Bowl and nine years to win my first Winston Cup.”

Gibbs also likes to compare the two, linking his drivers with his football quarterbacks and his crew chiefs with himself as coach of the Washington Redskins.

Open Wheel Racing

The sorry downward slide of CART continued this week when its Sept. 21 race in Germany was canceled because of financial difficulties. Not affected, apparently, was a Sept. 14 race in England although the two races were supposed to share the cost of bringing the teams to Europe. CART was already suffering from a lack of teams, with only 18 drivers on its roster.

This is the second year CART has lost races. Brazil and Texas were canceled last year.

Clip and save: The Indy Racing League will be at California Speedway on Sept. 21 next year, a big change from this year’s March date. The CART date is not set yet but is expected to be in November again. This year it will be Nov. 3.

Eliseo Salazar, A. J. Foyt’s veteran Chilean driver, will return to IRL action Saturday night at Nashville Superspeedway after recuperating from chest injuries suffered in a crash during practice on April 16 at Indianapolis. He will drive a third car for Foyt, joining Greg Ray and Airton Dare.

Last Laps

Stock car fans who like variety can take their pick Saturday night--on the asphalt at Irwindale Speedway or on the dirt at Perris Auto Speedway. Both will feature five classes of cars, with more than 100 vehicles expected at both tracks.

For the first time in more than 80 years, Washington will be the site of a major race when the Cadillac Grand Prix takes place this weekend on a 1.7-mile seven-turn road racing course in the parking lots of Robert F. Kennedy Stadium. Featured will be a Trans-Am race on Saturday and an American Le Mans Series race Sunday.

Dave Villwock won his fifth APBA Gold Cup for unlimited hydroplanes last Sunday on the Detroit River. It was the 14th Gold Cup for Bernie Little, owner of Miss Budweiser. The unlimiteds will be in San Diego on Sept. 22.

Passings

Art Crawford, 74, of Rancho Cucamonga, who promoted races at Culver City Speedway in the 1950s and more recently was press box manager at Irwindale Speedway, died Tuesday of complications from a stroke. Survivors include his wife, Connie, twin daughters Ashley and Erin, age 8; and five adult children, Tom, Karen, Cindy, Kathy and Kane from two previous marriages. Services will be at 10 a.m. Saturday at Shepherd of the Hills Church in Rancho Cucamonga.

Russ Clendenen, 94, a U.S. Auto Club racing official for more than 50 years, died Monday at a nursing home in Dayton, Ohio.