Joe Gibbs Racing

Lore & Background

For the team's first 16 seasons, Joe Gibbs Racing ran cars from General Motors, winning three championships: two in Pontiac Grand Prixs and one in a Chevrolet Monte Carlo. The team switched to Toyota beginning in the 2008 season, and in 2015 brought Toyota their first Premier series championship with Kyle Busch's victory. The team fields four full-time entries in the NASCAR Cup Series: the No. 11 Toyota Camry for Denny Hamlin, the No. 19 Camry for Chase Briscoe, the No. 20 Camry for Christopher Bell, and the No. 54 Camry for Ty Gibbs.

In the O'Reilly Auto Parts Series, the team fields four full-time entries: the No. 18 Toyota GR Supra for William Sawalich, the No. 19 Supra for Brent Crews and other drivers, the No. 20 Supra for Brandon Jones, and the No. 54 Supra for Taylor Gray. The team has a driver development program that groomed future Cup winners Joey Logano and Aric Almirola and won one championship in the Camping World East Series (now known as the ARCA Menards East Series) with Logano.

The team won the 2021 ARCA Menards Series championship with Ty Gibbs. The organization teamed up with former NFL player Reggie White in 2004 to create a diversity program, fielding drivers such as Almirola, Marc Davis, and Bubba Wallace, and forming the basis for NASCAR's Drive for Diversity program. JGR formed a technical alliance with 23XI Racing in 2021 and sold minority stakes to Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment (HBSE) and Arctos Partners in 2023.

Reader's Guide

Gibbs founded the team in 1991 after exploring opportunities with Don Meredith, who currently serves as the team's Executive Vice President. In 1997, Gibbs' son J. D. Gibbs was named team president. In 1998, the team began building its facility in Huntersville, North Carolina. The team expanded to a two-car operation in 1999 with Tony Stewart's No. 20 Home Depot-sponsored car, then in 2005 added the No. 11 FedEx-sponsored car driven by Denny Hamlin and owned by Coy Gibbs.

For the 2015 season, the team added the No. 19 car driven by Carl Edwards, who followed former Roush Racing teammate Matt Kenseth to JGR. After winning three Cup championships and more than 70 NASCAR races in Chevrolet and Pontiac equipment, team officials announced in September 2007 that they would switch to Toyota (who had just entered the Cup series that year) after their contract with General Motors ended at the end of the season. Joe Gibbs said Toyota offered the team resources and options they 'were not going to be able to afford to do' if they remained at GM.

It was also reported that JGR executives felt they were treated by GM as less important than other GM teams such as Hendrick Motorsports and Richard Childress Racing. In 2012, JGR shuttered its in-house Sprint Cup Series engine program, merging with California-based Toyota Racing Development which provides engines to JGR and 23XI Racing. The team builds engines for its own Xfinity Series operations and ARCA Menards Series operations of Venturini Motorsports.

The team had a technical alliance with Furniture Row Racing, a single-car team based in Denver, Colorado, which closed after the 2018 season. In June 2023, JGR sold minority stakes to Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment (HBSE), founded and managed by Josh Harris and David Blitzer, and Arctos Partners. Gibbs became a limited partner of HBSE in the transaction.