TOYOTA RACING – Joe Gibbs
NASCAR Cup Series Quotes
CONCORD, NC (May 23, 2026) – Joe Gibbs Racing owner and founder Joe Gibbs was made available to the media on Saturday prior to the NASCAR Cup Series race from Charlotte Motor Speedway.
JOE GIBBS, owner and founder, Joe Gibbs Racing
Opening remarks.
“Well, just a terrible time, obviously. For all of us, the NASCAR family, and so a few thoughts I had first was just for Sam, and Brexton and Lennix, Tom, Gaye, just for that family. Our focus is going to be for the future for them, because we’re going to be there, and so whatever they need, we want to be a part of that, and so we just try and just encourage the Sam and everything that she’s going to go through. Our family has kind of gone through this and so, it’s just, honestly, it’s the worst thing that could happen in life, and so we just want to encourage them. Secondly, I just want to say that for Richard (Childress) and RCR (Richard Childress Racing), we just wanted to work in concert with them, and I reached out to Richard and told him that we just want to be together on this. We feel so, so much hurt for him, and RCR. Just a terrible thing to happen to them, and what’s happened to him also in the past, and so we just really want to do anything we can to encourage our RCR, and we want to work together as we go forward with this with them. The first time I heard about Kyle Busch, Coy, my son, was racing Trucks, and I forget where they were, it was, like, someplace Nashville or someplace. I don’t know where it was, and so I called him to kind of see how it was going after practice, and he said, ‘Hey Dad, there’s a 16-year-old here, and said he’s two seconds faster than anybody. He said, I hope to kick him out.’ (laughter) Actually, what happened, it was true. It was Kyle Busch, and they kicked him out. He was too young to be there and was so fast. So that was the first time that you kind of hear about Kyle, and when you think about everything that he accomplished – 63 cup wins, 234 wins in all three series and two championships. Just a phenomenal talent. There were really kind of three different things, I was going to mention to y’all, that as I thought about Kyle and everything, that I got to experience with him, and we got to experience with him, not just me, but everybody at our race team. The very first thing was that wreck, the crash in 2015, and so I think it said a lot about Kyle because I’ve been around a lot of athletes in football, and what have you. When they get a serious injury, that can really affect you, about your thoughts, going forward. So that night, after that wreck, I went to the hospital there where they had him, and at that point, he was on a gurney, and the doctor was there. Sam was there. Everybody was kind of there, and Kyle was raving at the doctor, and he was going, Get me in there. Fix this. I want to get back to racing, and so, I don’t know if he was drugged up some or not (laughter), but that was his approach, and honestly, his foot was, I thought, for us, the thing that we were worried about the most, because his foot was really in a bad situation. So, they fixed it, put the rod in his leg that night, and then we flew him back to here to Anderson, and he did his foot, and there was a lot to that, a lot of screws, and all kinds of stuff. So, you’re kind of worried about that. Obviously, that’s your braking foot and everything. I gave him one day, I went over to the house, and so I walked into the house, and he already had a trampoline type deal, and he’s doing pull ups on this thing. You know what I mean? So I’m standing there talking to him, and then he goes, watch this. He started wiggling his toes at the end of the cast, and I went like this, I went, Hey, are you supposed to be doing that? He goes, No, they told me not to do that. I said, quit doing that (laughter). But I just wanted to make a point to y’all. When you think about that, here’s an athlete really getting hurt, both of his legs and, yeah, his one leg and his foot, and for him to come back through that process, he was after it, honestly, every single day, in rehab. He came back in 11 weeks, and so I’m sitting on the box at Sonoma when he came back. That was a road race. That’s what we were really worried about, because of his foot, and the pressure and everything. So, we’re just hoping somehow, he can get through this, and I was sitting up there with some of the Mars people. I remember that. At the end of that race, when he came across that finish line and won that race, they were crying, everybody was crying. So, when you think about that, he came back in 11 weeks. He won five races and a championship. So, I just think, as far as courage and determination and a desire to win, I got to tell you, I’m not sure how many people could have or athletes could have gone through that, and handle it that way. So the one thing I always felt about Kyle, that guy had great courage. He was not afraid of almost anything, and he had a burning desire to race. It was just inside of him. So that’s the first thing I was going to mention. The second thing is, I honestly feel like if some of you heard that interview with Adam (Stevens), his crew chief, for our period of time, there at Joe Gibbs Racing. I think he had the best description of Kyle, and he said it was like a freight train. This thing is going, and you can get on, there’s going to be a big prize on the ride, and if you get in the way, you’re going get run over, okay? (laughter) I thought that was a great description of him and a bunch of all just got on board. I know we did at our race team, and it was full bore. He’s going, and there’s be some good things in there, and then every now and then, he’s going to run over a few things, and cross the line, and that passion and everything came out in so many different ways. Honestly, I may have 100 Kyle Busch stories, but I’ll just give you one that kind of says a lot about him. We were at Loudon, New Hampshire, and he finished second, and so I kind of slid over to where they’re interviewing people there, because sometimes, sometimes, there might be something I could have to handle afterwards (laughter), and so I slid over there, and his interview was absolutely great, and so I said, Well, gosh, you know, he must be happy. He finished second, so he’s probably happy. He walked 10 yards to me. I was standing there, and he went just like this, he went, Your cars sucked (laughter), and he kept right all walking. Some of you heard it because I was, I was nervous, the press heard that. You know what I mean? Those are examples of just his passion for things. It happened one other time, I give you one other quick one. We’re at Indy, and if you guys probably remember this, it was about the second or third restart. We had great cars. Both of us, both of us. Martin (Truex Jr.) was on the front row with Kyle, and that was our alliance car that Martin was in. They restarted, probably the two best cars. Martin got down on the curb. Some of you maybe remember this, and he shot up and just took Kyle out, put him right in the wall. So again, I knew this was going to be, this is not going to be good. Our alliance car, so I go over to where they’re interviewing the press, and again, Kyle handled looked pretty good, and then he walked to me and he goes just like this. There’s your alliance car, and he just kept walking (laughter). I mean, the passion that he had, and all of us experienced that, and I think that’s just, that was him, and I just admired that part of him so much. Did he carry him too far sometimes? Yeah, but the way he came across, but all of us saw that, and you guys probably witnessed, you probably have all of you, a lot of Kyle Busch stories. But then the third thing I was wanting to mention, because there’s a part of him that I just, I just really admired, and that was kind of highlighted in several things with his personality and the way he dealt with things. One of those is you guys may know, we do a Christmas video, and when J.D. was here, he and Dave Alpern, were Sal and Pern and they were – this wild video, and all kinds of stupid stuff. They had all kinds of skits and everything, and I’m going tell you, that Kyle Busch, he loved that. Every single thing we asked him to do, at one point, they had these plastic gloves, and they shoved it down over their head, you know what I mean? They got the fingers up like this. He was full bore on all that. Whether it was in a car, singing all kinds of stupid songs and stuff, he was full bore on the, he had a great sense of humor, but things like that. When he was away from a racetrack, he was so funny, and then we had one skit, I always remember. It was probably the best one we had. It was Kyle, and we had the young drivers, you know, in Xfinity, sitting in front of him. He was going do be the anger management coach, coaching the guys up, and it was all these funny things about how to handle things when they don’t go wrong, so the other part of that too, that I would just say to you, as we all know, in our sport, one of the most important things for a driver at this level is to be able to, you know, represent some of the biggest and best companies in the world. For our sport, it’s different. I don’t call them sponsors, I call them partners. Great partners, and to be able to keep a great partner for a long period of time, with the driver is really, really hard to do, because they got to constantly be talking to the top executives in the company, entertaining, signing stuff. It’s just nonstop. It’s a huge part of our sport that you don’t have in other sports. Mars, I reached out to Pam, Victoria, William, this week, and what they really said to me, it was more than a sponsorship. It was a partnership, and they went with him through all of that. There was a side of Kyle that was funny, and you get him away from a racetrack, really quick witted would say funny things, he could laugh at himself. He would be a part of our funny jokes and stuff that we would have at our complex, and he did a masterful job of keeping our sponsors. I mean, you think about that, five contracts with Mars. One of the biggest, most powerful companies in the world, and it was a personal. It was personal relationships he had with the key partners in that company. So, for all those things, and then the other side of that side of Kyle and Sam was Bundle of Joy, the way he cared about others that were going through similar type things that him and Sam had gone through, and the way he kind of reached out with that tells the side of Kyle that all of us, I just wanted to kind of mention that, because it was so important, because that part of him, sometimes, some people really didn’t get to see, but we got to see it. I would say this for me personally; I’ll have Kyle Busch stories forever. I can’t tell you how many funny things he did, and some of the things would shock, shock me, and everything, and I’m going, What the heck is he doing? (laughter) You know what I mean? I said, For God’s sakes, quit pushing my buttons. Say that to yourself. Funny things like that. So anyway, I just end with that, that this was somebody that we all kind of admired, a great athlete, that can do things that all of the rest of us you envision yourself, we admire pro sports, because these guys do things that are just, we admire, because it’s unbelievable the talent that they have. Just wanted to share those things with you.”
When was your last communication with Kyle?
“Here’s another example of Kyle. When Ty (Gibbs) won his race at Bristol, he reached out to Ty and said, Congrats on that. I thought it was great, and then he called me. I thought that was really something that he was willing to do. That was the last time I had a chance to talk with him.”
How important was Kyle’s personality for the sport of NASCAR?
“I think we love that about our sport; you see it in other sports too. Sometimes you admire the person that’s different, that’s going about things differently, and their passion, they wear it on their sleeve, and if Kyle was thinking something, he said it, he wasn’t planning things. He just did things, and I think we all kind of admired that, and I think we love that – that’s part of our sport, for sure, because our fans love their drivers and the people they’re pulling for, and so, that part of somebody, I remember, I would, when we first started with him, as I rode through, going to different hospitalities and stuff, I’d see people with the M&M’s when first started showing up, and I would stop, and sign something for him and say, Thank you, and after a while, it was a lot of people, because they had that M&M’s on, and so, yeah, you just saw him kind of, his popularity grew with the fans, and it was different. The one thing I always remember, if you remember, sometimes I would go, What the heck? But remember when he got out of the car at Bristol, and all the fans were booing, and he goes like this, he goes… (laughter) How do you come up with that? You know what I mean? And I thought to myself, why is he doing that? You know what I mean? So, I don’t know, I just love the guy, and the way he approached things, sometimes you would question, but he was definitely a unique person, and we really, really will miss Kyle.”
What was it like from your perspective to watch Kyle grow as a husband and father during his time with you?
“I do think there was definitely a change. I remember that very first year, to be quite truthful, probably one of the most exciting things that happened with us in racing, was when he came to us, and Mars signed on with us. I think they’d won, like, three races, they’d been in racing for, like, eight years or something. In that first year, with Toyota, and we won eight races with Kyle. I mean, it was something, like, you just can’t even dream that that would happen. But then I do think he, at that point, single in life, I think then Sam, when Sam came along and I saw a definite difference where he was really caring for somebody else and started thinking about other things in his life, and then, of course, with Brexton and Lennix, I think that is another step, and so I definitely felt like there was the maturing part of it, and he’s really was caring for somebody else, for sure, and a big way. So you kind of see that in somebody, a young guy, that goes through that process, and we kind of lived, lived through that with him.”
How do you start to counsel with them with your experience with extreme loss?
“Yeah, I kind of lean in a way on Heather and Melissa, my two daughters in laws, and I think the first part of this is just trauma, for sure, and so we just need to encourage and be there and love them. But I think then it’s the journey down the road, you know? And for me, I think what’s really important for Sam will be, and, Brexton and Lennix, and so I want to be there for that. We all do, you know? I think all of you will be supporting through this process, but I think it’s down the road that’s really important, and there’ll be ways that we can probably encourage the family and support them. I know Richard (Childress) is focused also on all that. I don’t want to lose out on how important this is for Richard and them. So anyway, I think it’ll be down the road, which is really, really becomes important, and I know that’s been the ways with my grandkids.”
What ways do you feel like Kyle helped make you a better owner?
“The first part of when we first got together, what you’re trying to do is build a race team. If we look at this, we started with 17 people and one car. We had Jimmy Makar, running everything, and so the journey to, I thought that’s the way it would always be. I thought it was going to be a hobby type thing, and so it just started growing, and today, it’s become what our family, and everybody that works there, you think about so many times, it’s all the people that work there that built the race team. Honestly, for us, we got so many people that, it’s the people that build it. It wasn’t us. We did our part to be there, the family, and everybody at work, Dave (Alpern), administration, Chris (Helein), everybody’s been there for a long period of time. We’d been a part of the family, but it was really the people there that grew our race team. When came on board, you’d think about it. We just signed with Toyota. We didn’t know, we made a decision because we wanted a chance to maybe distinguish ourselves with a manufacturer, thought that might be a chance for us, but for us to get off to the start we did, and for him to be such a key part of that, that was just a huge stepping stone for us. So you kind of look at that and say, He meant a lot to us, and then the other key drivers that came along that were a part of our process and our history. It’s just a great thing to be a part of something like this and see all the people that were a part of building our race team. I give out the awards, the 20-year awards, at Christmas to our employees. I think I gave out 15 last year. We got people who’d been there 30, and so when we make decisions, I know J.D. was always, he said, Dad, it was always the people. We need to make decisions based off of the people that work for us, and so, he was always intent on that. Well, Kyle was a part of helping us build that, because we all know, you’re not going anywhere unless you got a great athlete driving that car. Now, he’s not the only one that’s a team sport. You got to have the crew chiefs, the pit crews, and everything that it takes. You know what? What kind of amazed me, when I got into racing, it was, I thought it was a hobby. One car, go the racetrack, fix it, come back, go the racetrack thing, and today, it’s one of the things that you have to do everything. You’ve got travel now. You got PR, you got social and digital. You got to build the cars. You got the front office and everything that it takes, and so, really, it becomes a real, it’s a team effort to everybody, and he was a key part of that. We know the drivers get a lot of attention. They deserve it.”
In what ways do you want to honor and pay tribute to him in the future?
“I think we just want to, like I mentioned, working with Richard (Childress) and NASCAR and Toyota for us, and all those ways, we want to be a part of whatever we can do. We’re going to do some things, obviously, for the race. We’re going to do some things on our cars. All of our cars are going to have Rowdy over the door. They’re going to have a sticker that shows Kyle with the trophy, with the NASCAR trophy, and things like that, but those are things for this weekend, but there’ll be other things as we go forward, and I’m sure we’ll all work together, but we’re want to make sure we work with Richard, and we don’t want to step on anything there that they want to do. So, we’re working together. I texted Richard and told him that. That we want to be a part of whatever he wants to be a part of.”
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