Joe Gibbs, once considered a rival to many in the state of Texas as Super Bowl-winning head coach of the NFL’s Washington Redskins, will finally be hailed by the Lone Star State as the latest motorsports icon inducted into the Texas Motorsports Hall of Fame.
Also earning induction into the Hall is veteran motorsports writer and current RacinToday.com senior staff writer, John Sturbin.
Gibbs, who owns three NASCAR Sprint Cup Series championships (2000, ’02, ’05) as owner of Joe Gibbs Racing, will be honored Friday, April 16, during the Texas Motorsports Hall of Fame Gala in The Speedway Club’s Grand Ballroom at Texas Motor Speedway. The event is part of the Samsung Mobile 500 race weekend.
Along with Gibbs’ and Sturbin’s induction, TMS and Speedway Children’s Charities-Texas Chapter will recognize other outstanding individuals in motorsports, including: Sprint Cup Series team-owner and engine-builder Robert Yates; versatile Sprint Cup star Kyle Busch; four-time Cup champion Jeff Gordon; JTG-Daugherty Racing’s Marcos Ambrose.
Sturbin will be the first recipient of the Excellence in Motorsports Journalism Award. A 35-year veteran of the daily newspaper industry, Sturbin spent 12 years as motorsports beat writer with the Fort Worth Star-Telegram before joining RacinToday.com as a charter member of the staff in March 2009.
Gibbs, meanwhile, will become the 12th member of the Texas Motorsports Hall of Fame, joining previous inductees A.J. Foyt Jr. (2003), Johnny Rutherford (2003), Terry Labonte (2004), Lee Shepherd (2004), Kenny Bernstein (2005), Jim Hall (2005), Eddie Hill (2006), Mark Martin (2007), Jim McElreath (2007), Bobby Labonte (2008) and O. Bruton Smith (2008).
“It’s a great honor to have been selected into the Texas Motorsports Hall of Fame and I want to thank everyone with the Speedway and all those that voted for me to receive this recognition,” Gibbs said. “I’m not so sure everyone in Texas would agree with them judging by some of the reactions I used to get on the sidelines with the Redskins. But in all seriousness, I have always felt that Texas has some of the best and most passionate fans in the country, and certainly their support of the NASCAR community has been outstanding. Any success we have had at TMS should really be attributed to our drivers, crew chiefs and all the people here at Joe Gibbs Racing.”
Gibbs will become the first Sprint Cup Series team owner to earn a spot in the Texas Motorsports Hall of Fame. Gibbs has established one of the premier organizations in motorsports since opening the doors to Joe Gibbs Racing in 1992. He has won four championships in NASCAR competition (three Sprint Cup, one Nationwide Series), with his most recent coming last year as Busch was crowned Nationwide champion. Texas native and fellow Texas Motorsports Hall of Fame inductee Bobby Labonte guided the organization to its first Sprint Cup championship in 2000.
Additionally, no owner has proven to be more dominant than Gibbs at TMS. Competing in both the Sprint Cup and Nationwide series, his teams have combined for five wins, 18 top-five finishes, 35 top-10s and five poles at “The Great American Speedway.” In 2009, Gibbs joined Michael Gaughan as the only car owners to earn four consecutive victories at TMS, with Busch sweeping the Nationwide races here in 2008 and ’09.
Busch will be honored as Texas Motor Speedway’s Racer of the Year. Busch mastered the 1.5-mile quadoval in 2009 by earning his third and fourth consecutive victories in the Nationwide Series. He joined Brendan Gaughan as the only drivers to win four consecutive races in any major series at TMS.
