JGR a testament to power of one man's strong belief

Dale Jarrett was already growing doubtful, and the meeting hadn't even begun. The prospective car owner had agreed to pick up the NASCAR driver and his wife at the Washington airport, but he arrived late. Then he couldn't find the Jarretts in the terminal building. And when he finally did, he couldn't find his car. So the trio trudged over the steamy asphalt on that hot summer day in the nation's capital, until Washington Redskins coach Joe Gibbs at last remembered where he was parked.

"Kelley and I, we were a little skeptical at that point in time," Jarrett remembered. "But after meeting and having dinner, we were very convinced that this was a person who had been brought into our lives for a reason."

Dale Jarrett finished fourth in points in Joe Gibbs Racing's second year.

Joe Gibbs Racing

Cup Series

Years	17
Starts	973
Wins	58
Top-5s	271
Top-10s	453
Poles	41
Avg. Start	16.1
Avg. Finish	15.3
Top-10 Points	17
Championships	3

Driver Wins

Tony Stewart	32
Bobby Labonte	21
Denny Hamlin	3
Dale Jarrett	2

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Gibbs has a way of doing that, of communicating his belief, his cause, his vision with such resoluteness that the visitor is ready to strap on a helmet and bang heads. He delegates and motivates on and off the field, gives and receives complete loyalty. That's how the Super Bowl-winning coach convinced people to leave more established NASCAR organizations to join his start-up team 16 years ago. And that's what Joe Gibbs Racing has at its immediate disposal now that the car owner has retired from coaching football for good.

Back then it was a matter of convincing people that he could do it, that this football coach with no experience in auto racing could actually build a team to compete at NASCAR's highest level. Now it's a matter of using his leadership experience to relate to corporate executives and keep the sponsorship money flowing, of leaning on his player analysis background to choose the right people and place them in the right roles. In each case, the tools are the same -- an irrepressible force of personality and an unshakable faith.

He simply makes people believe. How else to explain how he wooed Jimmy Makar? The crew chief was coming off a Cup championship with Rusty Wallace, and had just made the move to a new team started by Roger Penske. They met in the lobby of a Charlotte airport hotel at the urging of Jarrett, Makar's brother-in-law. Makar was part of an organization owned by one of the most influential and innovative men in racing. Gibbs had six cars bought from Hendrick Motorsports, and a dream. Makar said yes.

"I still don't know to this day what made me say I'd talk to him when Dale called about meeting with Joe and crew chiefing the deal, but I did," remembered Makar, now team vice president. "And after sitting for an hour and a half with him in that lobby of that hotel and listening to his philosophies on people and team and teamwork and life in general, I knew right then. My wife was with me, and I told her when we got back in the car, 'This is it. This is what I've been looking for in a car owner, what he values and what he believes in in building a team. I really feel like that's where I should go.'"

Belief. How else to explain how he signed Jarrett, coming off a season in which he had won a race with the legendary Wood Brothers team? How else to explain how he inked Interstate Batteries as his founding sponsor, convincing chairman Norm Miller to back an unproven commodity?

"You talk about a miraculous deal," Gibbs said. "I really think God put it together, because we had no motors at that point, no manufacturer, no driver, nothing. This was a dream. Norm and the guys all sat there when we finished that proposal and talked to them two days later, and he said, 'Joe, we're thinking we want to do this.' Pretty miraculous, when you think about it."

How else to explain how he made it all work? They started in 1992 with 15 employees working in a 15,000-square-foot building on Harris Boulevard in north Charlotte, using Hendrick engines, and Gibbs still coaching football. They flew everywhere commercial, and often overnight. They were so naïve -- when Jarrett moved from the back of the field to the front in their first race, the 1992 Daytona 500, Gibbs was convinced they were going to win. "It's a piece of cake," he thought. When Jarrett crashed later in that same event, Miller was excited over all the coverage television cameras gave to the wrecked car.

The next year, they won the Daytona 500. Soon they were in a larger facility in Huntersville, N.C., and the number of employees began to climb. They hired crew chiefs named Zippy and Fatback, took a chance on a quiet driver named Bobby Labonte and a tempestuous one named Tony Stewart, and championships followed. Gibbs will admit, he's not a technical guy. He's won in racing the same way he won in football, by hiring the right people and letting them do their jobs. In return, he receives near unwavering devotion, as evidenced by the relatively low turnover rate at his shop.

"The biggest thing was Joe Gibbs the person. We couldn't go wrong there," said Jarrett, reflecting upon his decision to sign with this new, unproven team. "There were a lot of things we benefited from in being associated with Joe Gibbs and his organization for those three years. There were a lot of good things racing-wise, but beyond that were just the opportunities to learn life lessons from Joe Gibbs and the people he surrounds himself with. That's what struck us."

Autostock

Kyle Busch found a comfort level with Joe Gibbs when he was searching for a new team.

Added new driver Kyle Busch: "He has a stature, so when he walks through the shop, the guys might be down, and when you see Coach walking through the shop saying hello and shaking hands, it just picks them up and raises their spirits. You know what kind of person he is. He's got three NASCAR championships and three Super Bowl rings, so he knows what he's doing in pretty much everything he has done."

One day Gibbs' son Coy, a former Stanford linebacker, expressed a desire to get back into football, and Joe started to get the itch as well. The race team, he felt, had reached the point where he could step away. One night he asked his wife, Pat, what she thought about getting back into football? "You're going to ruin your good name," she chided. Still, it was in his blood. The Redskins job opened, and he went back to Washington. His employees in Huntersville understood, but were still saddened to see him go.

"I was kind of disappointed when he left," Makar said. "Joe has always been a mentor to me, a guy you could look up to for advice and information, not only in what you're doing in racing, but in what you're doing in your personal life. He had a great perspective on things. When he left and went to football, we knew we wouldn't be talking to him very much, and certainly not talking to him about personal things. Having him back, I look forward to bending his ear a little bit, and talking to him about things like that. I think he brings a dynamic to the team. When he's around, it seems like everybody's spirits are up, they walk a little bit taller, their chests are out a little bit more. And that's a good thing to have around the shop."

He wasn't completely out of the loop during his second stint in Washington. He entrusted day-to-day operations to son and team president J.D. Gibbs, whom he spoke with once a week on the telephone during the football season. J.D. remains in that role, even now that Joe has returned. It makes for small moments of conflict, like a tussle over the new Lexus bestowed by new manufacturer Toyota, and the occasional disagreement in team meetings.

Grant Halverson/Getty Images

J.D. Gibbs runs JGR on a daily basis, but everyone knows who the boss is.

"They both manage a little different styles, so there was always a little conflict there to watch," Makar said. "It was always interesting to see the two of them go at it when they were trying to discuss which way to go. That I've missed, especially in budget meetings and things like that. Joe has always been the kind of guy where, money wasn't an object. If it made the racecars go fast, if it made us win races, he was going to figure out a way to get the money. J.D. was always a more conservative guy who didn't want to do it. I'm sure that will come back. I'll look forward to seeing some of those discussions."

This return to the race team, the 67-year-old Joe Gibbs is quick to point out, is not a retirement. He might play a little more golf, might leave the day-to-day operations in J.D.'s hands, but he plans to be involved. With good reason. At Joe Gibbs Racing, nobody is a better motivator. Nobody better soothes over controversy and disagreement, something he was forced to handle in a drop-in role while still coaching in Washington. And nobody is better at closing the deal with sponsors. Even during the latter part of his final season with the Redskins, Gibbs made a few trips to secure the backing of M&M's, the new primary sponsor on Busch's No. 18 car.

"It comes from his background, dealing with executives," J.D. said. "When you're a coach, you're in the same role, so you can relate. He's also really good in leadership. When he speaks, people are going to listen. He's been through a lot of things that translate, football, racing, corporate world. That's a big deal. ... No, we don't have billions of dollars, but having him here, it's a huge asset to corporations."

And now he's here, full-time once again. His heart never really left. He still has his ties to the Redskins, serving as an advisor to team owner Daniel Snyder. But his focus is back on his NASCAR complex in Huntersville, where they make jokes about changing the door codes so Coach can't get down into the shop, or unplugging his radio on race days. He loves it. It may have been difficult for folks in Washington to understand, but this was always a race team owner moonlighting as a football coach, and not the other way around.

"We knew football was going to be for a limited amount of time," Gibbs said, "and hopefully, Lord willing, racing is going to be forever."

He says that, and his people believe him. They always have.