When Joe Gibbs quit the NFL to start a race team in NASCAR, he knew what his role in it was going to be. He wasn’t technically sound in race strategies or engineering, so he decided to focus on hiring the right people who could take the team forward. This was a job easier said than done, but extremely crucial.
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In a 2015 interview with Sports Illustrated, he explained the importance of finding the right people. He said, “Picking people is the hardest thing that we do in life. All of us that have teams want to pick the right people.” Fortunately, he had plenty of experience in this before coming to NASCAR.
He detailed how he had to identify and hire the right 22-year-olds for his teams in the NFL. Gibbs had learned at this time that character was the key attribute he had to look for, ahead of talent. Surprisingly, it was almost always the free agents who were more obsessed and dedicated to the team than the others.
He said, “That [free agent] means somebody else had either cut them from their team or they weren’t seen as good enough to be drafted. Yet with us, they fit the role. They were people who came to work early and stayed late. They meant a lot to the team. They were willing to pay a price.”
Not a lot of people today would be willing to set their goals aside for the common good of the team that they play for. Gibbs believes that it is his job to find such people for Joe Gibbs Racing. It is not hard to see that he has done a stupendous job at it.
What excites Joe Gibbs about his role in NASCAR
The team has won five NASCAR Cup Series championships since 1992. The success in this time comes down to the maturity of Gibbs to realize his strengths and play to them.
He added to Sports Illustrated, “I tell everybody my thrill in football was every Sunday, being on the sidelines and calling a play. My thrill over here is the first of every month trying to pay the bills.”
A discussion about the leadership at Joe Gibbs Racing cannot go by without mentioning Dave Alpern. Currently, the team’s president, Alpern, joined it back in 1992 as an unpaid project intern. He has seen the organization grow from 18 members to over 500 members now. The impact he has had on the team’s marketing side is simply monumental.
Tim Carmichael, the team’s Chief Financial Officer, is another key person who has been with the team for over two decades. Hiring such dedicated and talented people is how Gibbs has crafted a lasting legacy for himself in motorsports.
