Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR) is one of the top teams in NASCAR and if you look at their driver lineup, the team appears to be headed in the right direction for many years to come.
In August the team announced that 23-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series winner Carl Edwards would join their driver lineup for the upcoming 2015 season and beyond. The deal, in which Edwards will drive a fourth car for Joe Gibbs Racing, is a multi-year deal and was the most significant deal of the 2014 NASCAR Silly Season. Joining Edwards at Joe Gibbs Racing is former teammate Matt Kenseth.
Kenseth, the 2003 NASCAR Cup Champion, has 31 career NASCAR Sprint Cup Series victories in his 15 full-time seasons in the sport and won seven races in the Sprint Cup Series just two seasons ago. Kenseth signed a multi-year deal with the organization prior to the 2013 season. It is clear that Kenseth is here to stay at Joe Gibbs Racing.
The same can be said for Joe Gibbs Racing drivers Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch, two of NASCAR’s best young drivers. Even though Busch will be entering his 11th full-time season of his Sprint Cup Series racing in 2015 he will only be 30 years old in May. Busch has an impressive 29 wins in those 11 seasons and is one of the best drivers in NASCAR.
Hamlin will be entering his 10th year of competition in the 2015 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season. Hamlin will only be 34 years old for the majority of the 2015 season. His 24 victories in the last 10 seasons rank him among NASCAR’s best in that time period.
It is hard to fathom a possibility of either one of Joe Gibbs Racing’s four Sprint Cup Series drivers leaving to drive for anyone else in the near future. All the team’s drivers are locked up in multi-year contracts and are young enough where retirement isn’t even on their radar.
JGR’s NASCAR Xfinity program has been outstanding the past few seasons. They also have a major alliance with Kyle Busch Motorsports in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series. The team has been the blueprint for success in the NASCAR Xfinity Series the past few seasons and in 2015 that shouldn’t change.
Not only does their Sprint Cup Series team have a group of talented young drivers but their Xfinity and Camping World Truck Series programs have that as well. On the truck side of things the organization has two-time Snowball Derby champion and two-time NASCAR Camping World Truck Series winner Erik Jones signed to a development contract. Jones will run a full season at Kyle Busch Motorsports in the 2015 season. Jones has been considered by many as one of NASCAR’s best young rising stars. Also running for Kyle Busch Motorsports in the 2015 season is 25 year old driver Justin Boston. Boston finished in the top five in points the past two seasons in the ARCA Racing Series and had two victories in the 2014 season. Joining Boston at the organization is young 19 year old driver Matt Tifft, who will run eight races for the team in the 2015 season. Not a bad group of young drivers for the team and it’s only beginning.
If you move to the Xfinity Series at Joe Gibbs Racing the team recently signed young 22 year old driver Daniel Suarez to a full-time deal. Suarez, a Mexican driver who has won 10 races in NASCAR’s Toyota Mexico Series the past three seasons, is another young driver with promise. Also currently at the organization is Darrell Wallace Jr. Wallace won four races for Kyle Busch Motorsports in the 2014 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series season. Joe Gibbs Racing is currently looking for sponsorship for the 21 year old African-American driver.
Now there are reports that Wallace has asked out of his contract at Joe Gibbs Racing to explore a full-time opportunity to drive for Roush Fenway Racing. Reportedly, Roush is interested in hiring the Alabama native to drive full-time in the NASCAR Xfinity Series in 2015.
Wallace’s potential move has left a lot of people scratching their heads as to what Wallace is trying to do. Joe Gibbs Racing is a team that has a substantial upside and is considered by many experts as one of the top three or four teams in NASCAR. He would be moving to an organization who has struggled in recent years and has seen two of its biggest stars, Matt Kenseth and Carl Edwards, leave for the organization for Joe Gibbs Racing. From afar it looks like Wallace should stay with Joe Gibbs Racing.
However, if you dig a little deeper you will realize that Wallace is making the right move. As I mentioned before it is highly unlikely that Wallace will find a seat in one of Joe Gibbs Racing’s Cup Series teams in the near future. Wallace’s career is on the fast track and for him three or four years may be too long to wait.
Going to Roush Fenway Racing makes Wallace’s dream of becoming a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver more realistic. If you look at Roush’s current Sprint Cup Series lineup they have an aging 45 year old Greg Biffle and two young drivers in Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Trevor Bayne in line for the 2015 season and the organization has the potential to grow.
Wallace, who became the first African-American driver to win a NASCAR race since Wendell Scott in 1964 when he won at Martinsville in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series in 2013, would be a popular hire and could sell sponsorship in the Sprint Cup Series because of the historic value behind him. Roush Fenway currently has a three car operation and there is a chance they can go to four teams if sponsorship is found, something that can’t happen very easily at Joe Gibbs Racing.
It’s an interesting dilemma that Joe Gibbs Racing is facing. They currently do not have an alliance with any Sprint Cup Series organization. The team works with Michael Waltrip Racing but not currently to the capacity other organizations do with other teams.
Current Joe Gibbs Racing driver Kyle Busch was very vocal after the season about Joe Gibbs Racing’s need of an alliance. He was quoted in an article on MRN.com say that “We (Joe Gibbs Racing) need to have an affiliation,’’ Busch said. “It would be nice if MWR … made us all eight. It would be better for all of us. There’s a couple of reasons that we’re fighting internally why we’re not mingling with those guys quite yet, but hopefully that gets resolved here soon.’’
Busch is 100 percent right. If you listened to NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion Kevin Harvick in the last couple of weeks of his championship run in the 2014 season, Harvick pointed towards his team’s (Stewart-Haas Racing) affiliation with Hendrick Motorsports as being a big key to the team’s success in 2014. Stewart-Haas Racing shares engines and chassis with Hendrick Motorsports and has a major association with Hendrick.
With NASCAR’s four car per team rule Joe Gibbs Racing ca not expand into a five car operation. The only way Gibbs can add to his fleet of cars is to add satellite teams. That may be harder said than done considering it’s been an issue for their engine manufacturer (Toyota Racing Development/TRD) to add teams to their fleet. Heading into the 2015 season TRD will build engines for six full-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series teams, the same number the company has had for the past several seasons.
When you look at the engine programs TRD is competing against on a weekly basis, TRD has the least amount of cars in their fleet. Hendrick Motorsports provides engines to 11 full-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series teams heading into the 2015 season. The Roush-Yates engine program currently fields engines for 10 full-time Sprint Cup Series teams and several part-time teams. The Earnhardt Childress Engine program currently fields engines for nine full-time Sprint Cup Series teams.
All of those engine programs are significantly higher than what Toyota Racing Development engines currently provide. Every other manufacturer in the Sprint Cup Series has the ability to grow and expand because they are not hampered by their engine program, like Joe Gibbs Racing is.
Not only that but Toyota’s subsidiary engine program, Triad Racing Technologies, has underperformed the past few seasons. They currently do not have a full-time Sprint Cup Series team to provide engines for entering into the 2015 season. There are not too many teams willing to move from where they are to go to an underperforming engine program.
That means that the only way a team would align with Joe Gibbs Racing would be to have TRD Engines and not Triad Engines since Triad has underperformed. That means that TRD would have to expand the amount of teams they provide engines for in a hurry.
While Gibbs’ driver lineup in the Sprint Cup Series is currently fantastic the team could potentially find themselves competing against a lot of talent that Joe Gibbs Racing has groomed through their Xfinity and Truck programs.
Darrell Wallace Jr. may be the first to jump ship but he may not be the last. Wallace sees the handwriting on the wall that there is a logjam at Toyota and Joe Gibbs Racing. Eventually you have to wonder when the other young drivers in Joe Gibbs Racing’s stables will see the writing on the wall. Don’t be surprised to see Daniel Suarez or Erik Jones make a jump to another organization in the next couple of years as several teams may try and gobble up the young talent with the promise of Sprint Cup Series rides, something Joe Gibbs Racing may not be able to promise.
You have to wonder what’s next for Joe Gibbs Racing and Toyota and whether the team and manufacturer will step up to the plate and spend the time, money and resources it takes to compete against Hendrick Motorsports. Until that time though, Joe Gibbs Racing will continue to lose its young talent to other teams who can provide them with Sprint Cup Series rides.
