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 Washington Football Team and has been a defining principle behind building Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR) into one of NASCAR’s most successful multi-team racing organizations and earning his place in the NASCAR Hall of Fame.

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).

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 more than 500 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 360 overall wins in NASCAR, five NASCAR Cup Series championships (2000, 2002, 2005, 2015, and 2019) 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).

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 for Washington in 1981 and his determination and perseverance was immediately on display when the team lost its first five games. The team rebounded to finish that season 8-8 and the following season, he would lead Washington to their first Super Bowl Championship in franchise history. Over the decade that followed, he would lead the team 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 Washington again in 2004 and led the team back to the playoffs twice over a four-year span. Gibbs compiled an impressive 154-94 (.621) record over his 16-year career as head coach in the NFL and added a stellar 17-7 playoff mark (.708). He was named to the NFL’s 100 All-Time Team in 2019 as one of the 10 best football coaches in history.

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 five NASCAR 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 in 2016 and then took the checkered flag again to open the 2019 NASCAR season. The 2019 season would prove historic as JGR compiled a record 19 wins and claimed three of the four spots in the final race for the championship. Kyle Busch would complete the season with a win at Homestead-Miami Speedway and his second NASCAR Cup Series Championship. Gibbs was honored with the rare achievement of being named to his second professional sport hall of fame in January 2020 when he was introduced into the NASCAR Hall of Fame.

Gibbs started Joe Gibbs Racing with his oldest son J.D., who died 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, leads the NASCAR operations as Chief Operating Officer.

In addition to his work with Coy at the race team, Gibbs is working to further spread the message of “Game Plan For Life” which has now grown to include the Field Minister Program. In partnership with the College of Southeastern and the North Carolina Department of Public Safety the North Carolina Field Minister Program is a fully-paid, four-year Bachelor of Arts degree in Pastoral Ministry with a secondary emphasis on counseling. Inmates serving sentences ranging from 15 years to life sentences are eligible to apply for the program which currently accepts 30 students each year. Upon graduation, the Field Ministers are then deployed to prisons throughout the state to work as chaplains and peer to peer counselors inside prison walls.

Gibbs also remains committed to Youth For Tomorrow, a home he founded in Bristow, VA which enrolled its first student in 1986 and 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.