Drought-busting win validates changes at Joe Gibbs Racing
Today at 09:02 AM
It took eight months, but Joe Gibbs Racing has reset the winless counter to zero.
Christopher Bell — the same driver who last triumphed for the organization at New Hampshire in June — won Sunday night at Atlanta Motor Speedway to put an end to a question he was beyond tired of being asked.
"I am glad that we don't have to hear that," Bell said with a smile at Atlanta. "Joe Gibbs Racing has not won since June. That's all I've heard. So, I'm very happy to end that narrative."
Gibbs won six races last season with two of its four drivers. The other two went winless.
Ahead of the 2024 season, Denny Hamlin and Ty Gibbs were each paired with a new crew chief. Hamlin now works with Chris Gayle, who previously worked with Gibbs. Tyler Allen, from the organization's Xfinity Series program, was paired with Gibbs.
And Chris Gabehart, Hamlin's former crew chief, was promoted to competition director. The move allows Gabehart to oversee and contribute to all four teams.
"In our case we felt lik,e we needed to re-organize and do things a different way," Joe Gibbs said. "Last year we led a lot of laps, but we didn't win races like we should, and so we went to work in the offseason. Moved Chris up, kind of re-organized, and kind of redid the 54 car, and we made some other changes. So, it's great for us to get off to a good start here with the second race of the year to get a win."
Bell was the highest-finishing driver for Gibbs in the 2024 championship standings (fifth). He was the last driver eliminated in the postseason, which came down to a review at Martinsville Speedway over the finish and race manipulation. NASCAR gave the final Championship 4 spot to William Byron over Bell.
Sunday night was Bell's ninth win in the Next Gen era. It moved him one win ahead of Hamlin for the most of any Gibbs driver.
"That's a long time for the organization to go, for sure, and a long time for this 20 team to go," Adam Stevens said. "But we were super competitive in that gap and had a lot of opportunities slip through our fingers for a litany of reasons that I won't even go through. So, we didn't feel like it was lack of performance. On occasion it was lack of execution and on other occasions it was just pure circumstance. And you're going to have that. We had that (Sunday) in our favor.
"I feel like the changes that were made in the offseason are nothing but a colossal positive for Joe Gibbs Racing, for my team, and for the future success of our company. I think that maybe we've seen a little bit of that this year already. We were pretty sporty as a whole in Daytona, and we certainly all qualified better. We had competitive cars (at Atlanta) once we got the balance close. Probably not the two best examples, but we get six or eight races into the season, I think you're going to see a lot more competitive Joe Gibbs Racing."
