Winning a race in the Cup Series is a prestigious honor for any driver. But consistency throughout a season matters to be a champion. Joe Gibbs Racing ensures that its drivers aren’t satisfied with a single victory each season through a simple yet effective method to celebrate success. Christopher Bell detailed the same in a 2023 interview.
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He was asked on Freak Nation how the team celebrates victories. He detailed that there is a wall at the Joe Gibbs Racing shop on which banners are hung. Each of these banners represents a win that a Joe Gibbs Racing driver has brought home. So, the team’s personnel gather around the wall every Monday after a race win and celebrate the moment as the banner goes up.
Bell believes that this is a huge motivation for the drivers. While there isn’t a direct competition on who gets the most banners up on the wall, each of them does carry the desire to see their number up more than the others. He said, “There’s not really a prize so to speak of but I remember when I started in 2021 there really wasn’t very many #20 banners.
“I know Erik (Jones) won at Darlington and the Daytona race at some point, but you know lots of #11, lot of #18 and Martin Truex had a lot of #19 banners up. So, my goal was to get some #20 banners hung up in there and there’s a lot of #20 banners up there now.”
Win on Sunday, celebrate on Monday! Continuing the tradition at JGR with another banner raising ceremony. @CBellRacing has a 63.64% win percentage at @NHMS, which ranks first all-time among drivers with 10 or more national series starts at a track.#NASCAR #success #teamwork pic.twitter.com/VXZlyg3QCd
— Joe Gibbs Racing (@JoeGibbsRacing) June 24, 2024
Bell has won 12 races so far. That means he has helped put up 12 banners in addition to what had already been. How much Bell loves the banner-hanging tradition was visible from his words after winning at New Hampshire Motor Speedway last year.
He said, “I sure do love hanging these banners up in here. I remember coming up and sitting up there and looking over here and thinking, ‘Wow. What would it mean to have my name on banners!’ This is probably my favorite part of winning.”
He continued to express his love for his team, his crew, and the other employees at the race shop. Denny Hamlin is the team’s winningest driver with 58 visits to Victory Lane. Kyle Busch, with 56 wins, has the second most banners up on the wall. Tony Stewart (33 wins), Bobby Labonte (21 wins), Martin Truex Jr. (15 wins) and Matt Kenseth (15 wins) round out the top six.
