From Dale Jarrett's 1993 Daytona 500 to Kyle Busch's 2019 title, the Huntersville team has moved from Chevrolet to Toyota and turned five championships into a long driver pipeline.
Joe Gibbs Racing is a Cup Series organisation founded in Huntersville, North Carolina, in 1992 by Joe Gibbs. It has won five Cup titles, moved from Chevrolet to Toyota in 2008, and fielded drivers including Dale Jarrett, Bobby Labonte, Tony Stewart and Kyle Busch.
Joe Gibbs Racing is a stock car organisation founded by Pro Football Hall of Fame coach Joe Gibbs in Huntersville, North Carolina, in 1992. It has won five Cup Series championships, and its cars have carried a long line of drivers from Dale Jarrett and Bobby Labonte to Kyle Busch, Denny Hamlin and Chase Briscoe. Gibbs's son, J. D. Gibbs, ran the team alongside him until his death in 2019.
Who founded Joe Gibbs Racing and where is it based?
Joe Gibbs founded the organisation in Huntersville, North Carolina, in 1992. J. D. Gibbs ran the team with his father until his death in 2019, and the family name stayed on the operation through its most successful years. The team has used Chevrolet and Toyota machinery over its history.
The team debuted at the 1992 Daytona 500 with second-generation driver Dale Jarrett at the wheel of an Interstate Batteries Chevrolet Lumina. That first race ended in a 36th-place finish after a crash, but the team improved quickly the following year.
Five Cup titles, one founder and a line of drivers that ran from a 1993 Daytona 500 win to a Toyota championship.
How did the team's first Cup years develop?
The team improved dramatically in 1993, when Jarrett won the Daytona 500 and finished a then career-high fourth in points. Jarrett won a race at Charlotte but slipped to 16th in points in 1994, and he moved to Robert Yates Racing's No. 28 for 1995.
In 1999 the team expanded to two cars, bringing in IndyCar champion Tony Stewart to drive the No. 20 Home Depot Pontiac Grand Prix. The early Cup years were a period of learning, but they laid the base for the championship seasons that followed.
Who was Bobby Labonte and what did he win?
Bobby Labonte replaced Jarrett in 1995. He was the younger brother of Terry Labonte and had finished runner-up for 1993 Rookie of the Year. In his first season he won three races, sweeping both Michigan events and winning at Charlotte, and he finished 10th in points.
The team's breakout year was 1999, when the No. 18 won five races at Dover, Michigan, Atlanta and both Pocono events. The team finished second in points that season, and Labonte won the 2000 Winston Cup championship. He won the second race of the season at Rockingham, the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis, and the Southern 500 at Darlington.
Labonte held the points lead for 25 consecutive races to win the 2000 championship, the organisation's first title. He earned all 21 of his Cup wins in the No. 18 car.
How did the team's later years with Labonte go?
The team struggled in the years that followed. It won only two races in 2001 and finished sixth in points, then scored only one win in 2002 and finished 16th. In 2003 the team won at Atlanta and Homestead and finished eighth, and in 2004 it fired crew chief Michael McSwain midseason.
In 2005 Steve Addington became crew chief, but mechanical trouble continued to hurt the team. Labonte's high point came at the Coca-Cola 600, where he finished second to Jimmie Johnson by half a car length. He finished 24th in the standings, and he left for Petty Enterprises after the season.
How did Tony Stewart shape the No. 20 car?
Tony Stewart made his Cup debut at the 1999 Daytona 500, starting from the outside pole. That season he won at Richmond, Phoenix and Homestead, took the Winston Open and the Rookie of the Year honours, and finished fourth in points.
Stewart's 2000 season brought six wins, including both Dover races, but he finished sixth in points. In 2001 he took the Budweiser Shootout, Richmond, Infineon and Bristol, and he finished second overall. In 2002 he won at Atlanta, Richmond and Watkins Glen, and the team took the 2002 points championship.
Stewart won his second championship in 2005. He took the Pepsi 400 at Daytona, followed by wins at New Hampshire, Indianapolis and Watkins Glen, and he held the points lead through the Chase. He was released from the final year of his contract on 9 June 2008, which ended a twelve-year relationship with the organisation. Over that time he had won more than 30 races and two Cup titles with the team.
Who drove the No. 11 for JGR?
Denny Hamlin took the No. 11 FedEx ride in 2006. He won the Budweiser Shootout to open the season, and in June he scored his first Cup victory at Pocono Raceway after starting on the pole and recovering from a cut tire. In July he won again at Pocono from the pole, leading 151 of 200 laps.
Hamlin finished third in points as a rookie and was the only rookie to make the Chase until 2016. He won the 2016 Daytona 500 by 0.010 seconds over Martin Truex Jr., the closest finish in the race's history, and he won the 2019 and 2020 Daytona 500s as well.
The team's breakout year came in 2010, when Hamlin won at Martinsville and then a run of four wins in ten races. He finished second to Jimmie Johnson in the Chase. In 2022 he won the Coca-Cola 600 and then lost the Pocono win after a post-race inspection found an alteration to the car's front fascia, which made him the first Cup Series winner disqualified since 1960.
In 2025 Hamlin won at Martinsville, Darlington and Michigan, among other races, and he reached the Championship 4. He lost the title to Kyle Larson by three points. In 2026 he scored his 61st career win at Las Vegas.
What did Kyle Busch add to the No. 18?
Kyle Busch signed to drive the No. 18 in August 2007, leaving Hendrick Motorsports after a controversial tenure there. Mars, Incorporated's M&M's brand became the primary sponsor, and the team also moved from General Motors to become Toyota's highest-profile team. Busch gave Toyota its first Cup win on 9 March 2008, at Atlanta, where he led a race-high number of laps.
In his first year in the car he won seven more races after Atlanta and finished tenth in points. In 2009 he won at Las Vegas and at Richmond and both Bristol races, but he missed the Chase by eight points. Dave Rogers became his crew chief in 2010, and the team won at Richmond, Dover and Bristol that year.
The team's titles came later. In 2015 Busch won five races and the Cup championship at Homestead-Miami Speedway, becoming the second title for the No. 18 and the first for Toyota. He had 12 top fives and 16 top tens in only 25 starts that season. He won the title again in 2019 with the Ford EcoBoost 400.
Who drove the No. 19 and No. 20 after 2013?
Matt Kenseth took over the No. 20 in 2013 after leaving Roush Fenway Racing, while Joey Logano moved to the No. 22 at Team Penske. Kenseth won five races in the regular season and led the most laps at several other races, and he also won the first two races of the Chase.
Joey Logano had first driven the No. 20 in 2009, when he won at New Hampshire after a fuel-mileage gamble and became the youngest winner in Cup history. He finished 16th in points in 2010 and 24th in 2011 before leaving for Team Penske in 2013.
Carl Edwards became the team's fourth full-time car in 2015 as the No. 19, and he won at Charlotte in May 2016. He quit NASCAR in January 2017, and Daniel Suarez replaced him. Martin Truex Jr. drove the No. 19 from 2019 to 2024, finishing second to Kyle Busch in the 2019 standings and second to Kyle Larson in 2021.
Erik Jones claimed his first Cup win at Daytona in 2018, and he took the No. 20 to his second career win at Darlington in 2019. Christopher Bell replaced him in 2021 and won at the Daytona Road Course that February. Bell finished a career-best third in points in 2022, and he won at Bristol and Homestead in later seasons.
How did the team's championships compare?
The five Cup titles came in 2000, 2002, 2005, 2015 and 2019. Labonte won the first, Stewart won the 2002 points championship and the 2005 title, and Busch won in 2015 and 2019.
Each title came in a different season, and Busch won two of the five. The titles show how the organisation moved from one driver to another. Labonte's No. 18 team gave way to Busch's, and Stewart's No. 20 team gave way to a line of drivers that included Logano, Kenseth, Jones and Bell.
| Year | Champion | Car | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2000 | Bobby Labonte | No. 18 | Points lead held for 25 races |
| 2002 | Tony Stewart | No. 20 | Points championship |
| 2005 | Tony Stewart | No. 20 | Second title |
| 2015 | Kyle Busch | No. 18 | Five wins in 25 starts |
| 2019 | Kyle Busch | No. 18 | Second title |
What is the No. 54 and what came after Kyle Busch?
After Mars left, Kyle Busch departed for Richard Childress Racing in 2023, and the car number changed. The No. 18 became the No. 54 in 2023, with Ty Gibbs as driver, and the car carried Monster Energy and He Gets Us as primary sponsors.
Gibbs finished 18th in points in his first season and won Rookie of the Year honours. In 2024 he made the playoffs but was eliminated in the Round of 16.
Which fill-in cars did JGR run?
Before expanding to four full-time cars, JGR occasionally fielded a fourth car for research or development. Mike Bliss drove several races in a No. 80 car in 2003 and 2004. Aric Almirola made his Cup debut in the No. 80 at Las Vegas in 2007, starting 31st and finishing 40th after a crash.
In 2008 Joey Logano ran the No. 02, an inverted version of the No. 20, before his full 2009 season. In 2009 David Gilliland drove the car in three races. In 2013 Elliott Sadler drove a renumbered No. 81 for three races, and in 2014 Sam Hornish Jr. replaced Hamlin at the Auto Club 400 when Hamlin was sidelined.
Those fill-in entries show how the team used spare equipment and driver development spots. They also kept the operation busy in years when a primary driver was out.
