NASCAR team ownership has produced wins measured in trophies and titles, but it has also carried heartbreaks that cut far deeper than any loss on the racetrack. Few families in the sport understand that weight more intimately than those led by Rick Hendrick and Joe Gibbs.
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Hendrick’s world was shattered on October 24, 2004, when his son, Ricky Hendrick, lost his life in a plane crash. Gibbs endured a similarly devastating path. His eldest son, J.D. Gibbs, passed away in January 2019 after a prolonged battle with a degenerative neurological disease. Years later, the family suffered another unimaginable loss when Coy Gibbs, the father of Ty Gibbs, died in his sleep on November 6, 2022, only hours after watching his son secure the NASCAR Xfinity Series championship.
Those moments left scars that no championship banner could ever heal.
However, in the midst of that grief, Denny Hamlin, a cornerstone of Joe Gibbs Racing, delivered a gesture that transcended competition. In February 2019, Hamlin placed J.D. Gibbs’ name on his car as a tribute.
That season-opening Daytona 500 turned into something far greater than a win. When Hamlin crossed the line first, the emotion poured out from every corner of the pit box. Crew members leapt from the wall. Water sprayed into the air. Someone shouted, “We did it for J.D.!”
Years later, in October 2025, when Kyle Petty visited the Joe Gibbs Racing facility in Huntersville, North Carolina, Gibbs guided him to a car preserved on display. That machine, frozen in time, represented the most meaningful victory of his life. Gibbs explained,
“This car is part of the most important victory that I’ve ever had in sports because it was all about JD at that point and everything that happened… JD actually found Denny. Racing late models in Manassas.”
Both men carried the same number. J.D. had worn No. 11 as a quarterback at William & Mary (high school) before stepping into the family business as a driver and executive. To Gibbs, aligning those details felt almost impossible to understand how everything happened.
Standing beside the car, Gibbs admitted that words rarely do justice to the emotions it still stirs. He reflected on the long years of uncertainty and pain during J.D.’s illness, recalling the questions he wrestled with when answers felt distant. In time, he came to believe that clarity arrived in the form of that Daytona 500 win in 2019, when grief briefly gave way to something that felt like peace.
On race day, J.D. Gibbs’ widow, Melissa, stood near the pit box, her hands covering her face, tears streaming as her sons celebrated around her. Amid the embraces, Joe Gibbs summed it up: “J.D. is on that car.” The win snapped Hamlin’s 47-race drought, but more importantly, it stood as the most emotional and significant victory Gibbs had ever experienced.
