Friday 5: Heather Gibbs grows into leadership role at Joe Gibbs Racing after husband’s passing

Seven months before he passed away, Coy Gibbs wrote a note to his wife Heather, providing the inspiration for her to step into a leadership role at Joe Gibbs Racing and the vision to carry the organization forward.

“It was like a blessing to have that, to go back and read it,” Heather Gibbs told NBC Sports. “He believed in me in that area.”

Coy wrote the note as part of the life planning the couple did at the time. He was 49 years old, the same age his brother J.D. was when J.D. died in 2019 due to a degenerative neurological disease. After his brother’s passing, Coy moved into an executive role with his father’s race team and was set to lead the organization whenever Joe Gibbs stepped away.

Coy’s death on Nov. 6, 2022, just hours after son Ty Gibbs won the NASCAR Xfinity championship, created a void in the family’s succession plan for the race team.

“We have great leadership, but it’s got to make it through the second generation before it can go to the third (generation), and we’ve lost the second generation,” Heather said.

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Heather first stepped into the public spotlight in April 2023 when she represented JGR after Christopher Bell’s victory in the Bristol Dirt Race. Since then, the co-owner of Joe Gibbs Racing has been involved various aspects of the team, including competition meetings. Heather also serves on the board of the Race Team Alliance and has been a part of NASCAR meetings with team ownership, including charter discussions.

“She certainly helps with us in making decisions,” Joe Gibbs, 83, told NBC Sports. “She’s strong. When we have a meeting and we bring up stuff, she’s not sitting back. I love that because I think that’s really helped us.”

Heather Gibbs, a mother of four who also remains a realtor, began to focus on the race team shortly after her husband’s death.

“It was an easy transition through a really, really hard time,” she said. “It was very, almost therapeutic, to be here and be around these people.”

Many there witnessed Ty grow. Homeschooled since the fifth grade, he often was at the shop with his dad. When there, he could be found in the simulator in the engine department or with team members on the shop floor.

Such memories and those of Coy in the building made it more inviting for Heather to become involved in the team.

“In my heart of hearts, I wanted to be here,” she said.

Heather said she finds comfort working at Joe Gibbs Racing and doing what Coy did.

“We love talking about Coy,” she said. “We love talking about what would dad say? Or can you imagine if this happened, what would dad do? I love talking about him. My kids love talking about him.

“We don’t want to memorialize him. So that’s been one thing that we’ve kind of guarded ourselves. We’re not ready for a plaque and a salute video or a memorial book. It’s more like in the present day time period.”

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Heather said that her experience as a realtor and selling multi-million dollar homes provides a good foundation for her role with Joe Gibbs Racing.

“With real estate, you’re dealing with people, it’s really emotional, high stress,” she said. “It’s like one of the top stressors, getting married, buying a house, having a kid, so you’re dealing with people that sometimes are emotional. So it’s being business minded through the entire thing, not bringing in any emotion. You get back to the deal.

“When you’re dealing with like drivers, crisis, bringing sponsors, finding sponsors, losing them, it’s the same thing that you have a thick skin.”

Heather Gibbs also recognizes what it means to be among the few females in an ownership position in the sport.

“I thought that was really important and valuable because there aren’t,” she said. “The first meeting, I’m looking around going, ‘Ok, I’m the only female in the room going to most of the ownership meetings. And then I’m like ‘OK, you’re going to have to get comfortable with being uncomfortable really quickly.’

“I remember going to my first competition meeting, it’s all our crew chiefs and drivers and they’re like … it’s usually the guys and I’m like, ‘Well, it’s OK. If I sit here the first time, then the second time or third time it won’t be as big of a deal. So now you’re in there and I love going because you can learn so much about what happened on the track and everything else.”

2. Corey Heim: “I want to prove … my worth in the Cup Series”

Sunday’s race at Nashville Superspeedway (3:30 p.m. ET on NBC) was to have been Corey Heim’s Cup debut. That changed when he drove two races for an injured Erik Jones earlier this season.

But this weekend marks the first time in a 23XI Racing car for the 21-year-old who has been dominant in the Craftsman Truck Series this season.

The Toyota development driver has a series-high four Truck wins this season and ranks second in the series in points.

Heim calls this weekend a “higher pressure situation.”

“I put a lot of pressure on myself on a normal basis, but I think with a big opportunity like that, obviously don’t want to go out and rip the fenders off of it by overdriving it, but, at the same time, I want to prove myself and my worth in the Cup Series,” he said.

NASCAR Cup, Xfinity and Truck weekend schedule at Nashville Superspeedway

USA Network and NBC have coverage from Nashville this weekend.

Heim has shown what he can do in the Truck and Xfinity Series. He’s won three of the last five Truck races heading into tonight’s event at Nashville. In the Xfinity Series, he finished third at Iowa two weeks ago and 10th at New Hampshire last weekend for Sam Hunt Racing.

David Wilson, president of Toyota Racing Development, said Thursday on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio that he believes in Heim.

“Corey Heim has a long, long tenure and career with Toyota,” Wilson said. “Irrespective of what team or car, he’s going to be racing with our company for a long time to come. We are very high on him.

“… Corey is a special talent. He takes care of his cars. He finishes races. He runs laps, and right now that is the goal is to get those reps and as many pit stops under his belt and to put him in difficult situations and see how he responds. I’m super excited for him this weekend.”

3. Extra incentive for playoffs

In the last month, Chase Briscoe has found out that Stewart-Haas Racing would cease operations after this season, leaving him without a job, signed with Joe Gibbs Racing to drive the No. 19 car next year, moved into a playoff spot, fallen out of a playoff spot and been as far back as 44 points below the playoff cutline.

His runner-up finish last weekend at New Hampshire moved him to 25 points from the playoff cutline with eight races left in the regular season.

“It’s mind-blowing to me that we’re even 25 points out with how bad we’ve ran,” said Briscoe, whose runner-up finish is his only top-15 result in the last five races. “We have ran so bad, especially the last five or six weeks, and even being in contention still, I think, says a lot about where we’ve kind of came from over the last 12 months.”

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Chase Briscoe will take over the ride Martin Truex Jr. will vacate after this season.

With the team going away after this season, Briscoe fears that if they don’t make the playoffs, some resources and information may be cut and likely impact performance in the final weeks of the year. That’s provided extra incentive to make the playoffs.

“We have to make the playoffs, truthfully, (or) I feel like our team will completely shut off,” Briscoe said. “I was talking to (crew chief Richard) Boswell about it (this week). Right now the garden hose (of information) is fully open, but if we don’t make the playoffs, our tools, the manufacturer side, everything’s just going to keep getting shut off.

“If we don’t make the playoffs, they’re not going to want that information going out to people that they obviously know are going to new teams. So, if we’re in the mix and we’re in the playoffs and we’re in the hunt and battling, then I don’t see how they could shut our tools off.”

4. Searching for a way

Eight races remain in the regular season and neither Richard Childress Racing car is in a playoff spot.

Kyle Busch is 45 points below the cutline and teammate Austin Dillon is 197 points below the cutline. Dillon will need a win to make the playoffs. Busch likely needs a win to make the playoffs. Busch enters this weekend on a career-long 39-race winless drought.

This week, RCR announced that Andy Petree, who had overseen the competition department, was retiring immediately. Former crew chief Keith Rodden is serving as interim competition director.

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Keith Rodden will serve as interim competition director at Richard Childress Racing.

Dr. Eric Warren, executive director, global motorsports competition for General Motors, said he has confidence in RCR making the playoffs. Warren was at RCR from 2012-20. He was the team’s chief technology officer before joining Chevrolet.

“One thing about our Chevy camp, we all work pretty close together, so there’s a lot of idea sharing and the way that NASCAR is, there’s still a lot of races left for the playoffs,” Warren told NBC Sports. “If you look at the past two years, both (2023 champion Ryan) Blaney and (2022 champion Joey) Logano maybe weren’t as strong and they built momentum toward the end, even Chase (Elliott) in ’20.

“I think there’s been flashes of performance (for RCR). … Kyle almost won Atlanta and Austin really ran well at a couple of tracks. We see some of the performance. … I still feel confident we can get RCR in the playoffs and once you do it’s a whole new ballgame. We obviously know the cars are close and we know how to make them close. It’s just getting the right combination with the tracks coming up.”

5. Numbers to know

1 — Lap out of 5,108 run this year that Chase Elliott has not completed.

2.7 — Ross Chastain’s average finish in three races at Nashville Superspeedway.

9 — Drivers who won a race last year but have yet to win a points race this season: Chris Buescher, Kyle Busch, Martin Truex Jr., Ross Chastain, AJ Allmendinger, Joey Logano, Michael McDowell, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Shane van Gisbergen.

26.0 — Percentage of laps Christopher Bell has led in the last five points races.

26.5 — Kyle Busch’s average finish in the last six points races.