Photo Credit: Noel Lanier
Joe Gibbs, owner of the No. 18 M&M’s/Red Nose Toyota, is happy to be in Victory Lane. This is his fourth victory with a different driver.
“I have to tell you, these two guys here have just done a terrific job,” Gibbs said. “I don’t know if any of our teams have ever been this hot and been up front every single week. It’s great to watch it. It’s great for M&M’s, Toyota, everybody back home. I called J.D. and everybody. We appreciate everybody working so hard back at the shop. It’s a total team effort. I say that all the time. We got everybody back at the shop working on the cars. We have Mars, one of the most powerful companies in America. It takes all of us to do this, to be a part of this.
“Then to have Kyle as hot as he is right now, it’s very hard in pro sports. The hardest thing in pro sports is to stay up there every week. Right now it’s been a thrill. We love coming to Kansas, this part of the country. Our sponsors and everybody here, really appreciate it. It’s been a thrill for us.”
Gibbs thinks its pretty impressive that Busch has won on every track they race on currently but two. He feels like he will win at those tracks eventually because he always seems to find his way in to Victory Lane, adding that he doesn’t feel there’s a drier he could compare to Busch.
“I don’t know that I have,” Gibbs said. “What I said is I want to get to the two he hasn’t won at. He’s hot right now. He and Adam are hot. I know it was a big deal for him. We know he can win anywhere. I do think, you know, sometimes it’s amazing to me that you hear some drivers really like someplace, really don’t like some other place.
“But I think Kyle here, we’ve had our tough times, but I think he’s battled back to a point where I think, you know, he really can win anyplace. So it will be exciting when we get to the next two places.”
Three out of his four drivers – Denny Hamlin, Carl Edwards and Busch – all have at least one win or more under their belt this season; however, Matt Kenseth does not have any.
“He’s had a strong car,” Gibbs said. “He had a strong car again tonight. I felt like we were a little bit off with that car. Obviously the 78 is also a teammate of ours. We pull hard for them. That’s the reason why I hated what happened tonight.
“But in a sport where we have so many great teams, great owners out there, it’s so competitive, this is very, very hard to get on a hot streak. So I really appreciate it. I know how hard it is to reel several races off like this, so I’m going to enjoy it.”
Martin Truex Jr., driver of the no. 78 Bass Pro Toyota, for Front Row Racing is an affiliate teammate of Joe Gibbs Racing. For his race to end the way it did where he almost won was heartbreaking. Gibbs went to pit road to speak to Truex Jr. before making his way to Victory Lane.
“I felt so bad about that,” Gibbs said. “I wanted to first of all find out. As soon as we found out, everybody took pictures of it, you could see. We had that one other time. It’s a bolt on the inside that bolts the inside plate, and the head broke off. When it did, it turned. When it turned, it kept the tire from going on.
“I just felt so bad for our teammate like that. So I just stopped there with Martin and said, ‘Hey, Martin’, (and) I explained what happened. He was great. He said, ‘I figured something like that happened.’ They were, to be quite truthful, they were killing it all night. They were really fast.”
