LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. -- "Unprecedented" certainly describes Joe Gibbs Racing's 2008 Nationwide Series owners' championship -- and so does "unusual."

For starters, JGR's champion No. 20 Toyota was driven by four different wheelmen during the season: five-time winner Tony Stewart, Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch, and they were joined in May by highly anticipated newcomer Joey Logano.

“

For the guys at the shop that have worked all year long, it would have been real frustrating to go the whole year and not have something to show for it.

”

J.D. GIBBS

All four drivers won in the No. 20 as JGR's pilots won a phenomenal total of 20 of the 35 series races, though Busch and Hamlin each split time in Gibbs' No. 18 car as well as Braun Racing's Toyotas. Gibbs' No. 18 Camry won 10 races.

The owners' title is the first for JGR in 11 years in the series, after buying Bobby Labonte's Busch Series operation. The organization has three Cup Series titles with Labonte (2000) and Stewart (2002 and 2005), and one Camping World Series East crown with Logano in 2007.

"For JGR [it was] just a great finish for the year," team president J.D. Gibbs said. "To have all those guys win, and then for Joey to finish it off -- I think this means a lot to all the guys. This is also a testament to all the guys at Toyota and the partnership that we've put together in a short time."

After running its entire 16-year history with General Motors' products, Gibbs switched from Chevrolet to Toyota between 2007 and 2008. It flourished in both Sprint Cup, where its three drivers made the Chase for the Sprint Cup, and the Nationwide Series.

The "unusual" came in the personnel JGR was forced to employ at the racetrack, as the No. 20 team's crew chief, veteran Dave Rogers, was suspended from the racetrack for the balance of the season. Also put on suspension was the 18 team's chief, Jason Ratcliff, along with their car chiefs, for attempting to skew the results of a mid-season, post-race chassis dyno test.

Rogers remained the titled head of the 20 program and was acknowledged all season as one of the key ingredients in the title.

In the end, it gave the series a second consecutive "two-for-one" and the third time in the last six years that the owners' and drivers' championships have been split among two organizations. Richard Childress Racing won the owners' championship in 2007 with its No. 29 Chevrolet, which was driven by Jeff Burton and Scott Wimmer. RCR also shared the stage in 2003, when its No. 21 car won the owners' title. (Continued)