THE MODERATOR: We are now joined by our race-winning owner, Coach Joe Gibbs.<\/p>\n
We\u2019ll go ahead and open it up for questions.<\/p>\n
Q. Seeing Denny go out there and have the performance that he had today, thinking about where he was back in November, everything he\u2019s been through, talk about what you\u2019ve seen out of Denny and how good it feels to have a day like this.<\/p>\n
JOE GIBBS: I think Denny has gone through a process that all of you have seen it. I have seen it. From when he first got here, very shy. You had to push to get him to have a conversation with you.<\/p>\n
Today he\u2019s got a podcast. He\u2019s got a lot going on. (Smiling).<\/p>\n
Obviously went through a lot last year, everything with his parents. To see Mary Lou out there right now, I think this is a big deal for her and the family. I just appreciate them so much. Miss Dennis.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s been through a lot. Denny seems to have the ability to continue to work through things. Has a way of just really still being very competitive. He stays in a sim, hard work, really after it. I appreciate him so much.<\/p>\n
We\u2019re riding Denny for about 20 years. It\u2019s been an awful good trip for us (smiling).<\/p>\n
Q. This is being billed at the first real test of the season. You had all four of your cars up in the top eight. Can you talk about your other cars. You have Ty with three straight top fives, Chase overcame his issue, Bell has overcome\u2026<\/p>\n
JOE GIBBS: Yeah, by the way, to have those speeding penalties, we got to take a serious look at that because we all went to the back there with the exception of Christopher. It was great with Christopher getting on the pole. That got a lot of attention for Interstate Batteries. They\u2019re our founding sponsor.<\/p>\n
All of this just means so much to the sponsors. Yahoo! being with Denny. I think all of our cars, if you think about it, Chase was down a lap, came all the way back, finished seventh or eighth, wherever it was.<\/p>\n
Ty, three straight top fives, which has been really great for that team.<\/p>\n
I think with Christopher, he\u2019s right there. Finished second last week, third this week.<\/p>\n
I think it\u2019s been a great start for us. We realize how fortunate we are to be where we are. We love coming to Vegas. The fan base here, our sponsors that we had here today, it was a huge deal.<\/p>\n
Right now our race team, we\u2019re excited about where we are.<\/p>\n
Q. I assume you\u2019re flying home, have to be in court tomorrow. What are you hoping to get out of the court appearance tomorrow?<\/p>\n
JOE GIBBS: Yeah, don\u2019t want to be in court, but we\u2019re going to be there. I think it\u2019s important for us to follow through with this.<\/p>\n
Yeah, I think we got a weather problem, so hit me quick and I\u2019ll take off. I think we got to get to the airplane here pretty quick.<\/p>\n
Q. We know what Denny has had to go through to get back here today. What did it take for Chris Gayle?<\/p>\n
JOE GIBBS: I think Chris Gayle is a great story. This guy is so loyal to us. He\u2019s been through quite a bit. He brought Ty along to a certain point. Now he\u2019s with Denny. I just really admire him.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s mentally and physically tough. Stays after it. I think he\u2019s really talented. I think we got a great combination there. I think, as everybody here knows, you\u2019re not going anywhere unless you got a real talented crew chief. I really appreciate what we have now with our four cars.<\/p>\n
Q. (No microphone.)<\/p>\n
JOE GIBBS: No, I just basically, when I did talk to him, I said, Look, I\u2019ve been in that situation. I\u2019ve made calls. Sometimes they\u2019re really tough.<\/p>\n
I think that is why we love what we do, though, \u2019cause it\u2019s really hard. It\u2019s the best people in the world doing it. I think that\u2019s why people like to watch it. You can have some very tough days and tough decisions, for sure.<\/p>\n
Q. When I talked to Chris in Victory Lane, I talked to Denny, they mentioned teamwork and culture. How have you watched the culture build, grow and evolve?<\/p>\n
JOE GIBBS: I\u2019m glad you asked that because if you think about where we are today, we started with 17 people and one car. What\u2019s happened over the years is we continue to add and grow. It\u2019s been those people that have built Joe Gibbs Racing.<\/p>\n
We give out awards at Christmas. I gave out 20 15-year awards. We have people like that that came and worked there. You win with people in team sports. We got great people. They\u2019ve really built it. It\u2019s not us. It\u2019s all of them that pay the price.<\/p>\n
I just really appreciate that so much. I love that about team sports. You got to get people to work together. Our sport is probably one of the hardest because you got to get four teams to work together. The other part of it, you got to have sponsors. Other sports don\u2019t have to have sponsors to play.<\/p>\n
For all those reasons, I love NASCAR. Our family loves it. It\u2019s a thrill to be in it. I love the fan base and the fact that you got that many people that come out here today and cheer you on. It\u2019s great to be a part of this.<\/p>\n
I realize how blessed I am, how God\u2019s blessed me to be a part of this. I\u2019m just really appreciative.<\/p>\n
Q. Thursday night Ty took a really hard crash.<\/p>\n
JOE GIBBS: Don\u2019t bring that up (laughter). I\u2019m joking.<\/p>\n
Q. As the team owner, and as a grandfather, I know this was a policy a few years ago to not race another series, I heard Denny correct and help the other drivers on the team answer that question saying, Coach just wants you to win a championship, let\u2019s stay focused here.<\/p>\n
JOE GIBBS: That is true. I\u2019m hoping we go back to that.<\/p>\n
What happened, it was Ty, Christopher, and it was Chase also, all of them had something to do with their stuff. I originally wasn\u2019t in one spot when thinking about it. Changed my mind. I decided those guys, really to be truthful, don\u2019t have a lot else in the off-season. I made that decision, so\u2026<\/p>\n
I\u2019m always concerned about it. I\u2019ll put it that way.<\/p>\n
THE MODERATOR: Coach, thanks for your time.<\/p>\n
JOE GIBBS: Thank you all. Appreciate it.<\/p>\n
NASCAR PR<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"THE MODERATOR: We are now joined by our race-winning owner, Coach Joe Gibbs. We\u2019ll go ahead and open…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":539511,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,10660,20827,19452,12101,5508,634,582,721,82],"class_list":["post-539510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-chase","tag-crew-chief","tag-joe-gibbs","tag-joe-gibbs-racing","tag-miss","tag-nascar","tag-racing","tag-series","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539510","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=539510"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539510\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/539511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=539510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=539510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=539510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}