About Joe Gibbs

A successful organization starts with its people.

This has long been the philosophy of Joe Gibbs. It helped carry him to three Super Bowl championships as the Pro Football Hall of Fame head coach of the NFL’s Washington Redskins and has been a defining principle behind building Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR) into one of NASCAR’s most successful multi-team racing organizations.

It also guides Gibbs’ latest project: “Game Plan For Life”, which is the title of his New York Times Best Selling book and corresponding ministry (www.gameplanforlife.com).

Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR) has experienced amazing success and growth since Gibbs founded the operation in 1991. Beginning its first season of racing in 1992 with just 18 crew members, JGR now employs 600 people. Despite the immense growth, the company remains defined by the same principles of its founder: Integrity, a relentless work ethic, determination, perseverance and team building.

Those principles have been the driving force behind JGR’s success including over 290 overall wins in NASCAR, four Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series championships (2000, 2002, 2005, and 2015) and five NASCAR Xfinity Series Championships (2008 Owner’s Champions, 2009 Driver and Owner’s Champions, 2010 Owner’s Champions, 2012 Owner’s Champions, and 2016 Driver and Owner’s Champions).

Character-Based Leadership

Gibbs was applying character-based leadership long before he started in NASCAR. After 17 years of serving as an assistant coach to several college and NFL teams, Gibbs was hired as head coach of the Washington Redskins in 1981 and his determination and perseverance was immediately on display when the team lost its first five games. The Redskins rebounded to finish that season 8-8 and the following season, he would lead the Redskins to their first Super Bowl Championship in franchise history. Over the decade that followed, he would lead the Redskins to three more Super Bowls, including victories in Super Bowl XXII following the 1987 season and Super Bowl XXVI after the 1991 season.

Over that time, he became one of the winningest coaches in NFL history, but he would retire from the NFL following the 1992 season to turn his attention to his family and the new race operations. Four years later he would receive the NFL’s highest honor with induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1996. He would return to coach the Redskins again in 2004 and led the team back to the playoffs twice over a four-year span.

Joe Gibbs Racing

JGR would make its debut in the 1992, but it was a year later that JGR would claim its first victory, when Dale Jarrett captured the 1993 Daytona 500, known as the Super Bowl of racing, in the No. 18 Interstate Batteries car.

The growth and success of JGR has been extraordinary since that first victory, winning four Monster Energy Cup Series Championships and expanding from a single car operation in those early days to introducing a fourth-team for the 2015 season. And 23 years after that first Daytona 500 victory, Denny Hamlin would deliver JGR’s second win of the famed event in a thrilling photo finish that opened the 2016 NASCAR season and then took the checkered flag again in 2019.

Gibbs started Joe Gibbs Racing with his oldest son J.D., who passed away in January of 2019 following a long battle with a degenerative neurological disease. J.D. impacted so many lives over the course of his 49 years here on earth and his legacy will continue through the J.D. Gibbs Legacy Fund’s support of the Young Life ministry, as well as through the sharing of his story which can be found at www.jdgibbslegacy.com. Gibbs’ youngest son, Coy, helps lead the NASCAR operations on a daily basis as Chief Operating Officer, in addition to guiding JGRMX, a professional motocross team he founded in 2007.

In addition to his work with Coy at the race team, Gibbs is working to further spread the message of “Game Plan For Life” and also remains committed to Youth For Tomorrow, a home he founded in Bristow, VA that is now licensed to house over 100 troubled boys and girls ages 11-18.

He and his wife Pat currently reside near JGR’s Huntersville, NC headquarters and enjoy spending time with all eight of their grandchildren.