Joe Gibbs could not commit to fourth Cup team in bid to land Kasey Kahne
Joe Gibbs made a run at landing Kasey Kahne before he signed with Hendrick Motorsports. // Archive, NASCAR Illustrated
FORT WORTH, Texas – Joe Gibbs wouldn’t get into the reasons, but he said Friday night that it just wasn’t feasible for JGR to currently commit to a fourth Sprint Cup team when he was asked about Kasey Kahne signing with Hendrick Motorsports.
Gibbs thinks that Kahne knows where he’s racing in 2011 even though Hendrick announced Wednesday that his plans for 2011 are uncertain before he takes over the No. 5 car in 2012.
“I am going to have to say he’s not in limbo,” Gibbs said prior to being inducted into the Texas Motorsports Hall of Fame. “I would say there’s been a decision made of what’s going to happen there.”
The decision doesn’t include JGR, which had made a strong run at Kahne but couldn’t get the package done before Kahne made the decision to sign with Hendrick.
“It’s extremely hard to put together something where you’re trying to put together right sponsor, right driver,” Gibbs said. “That’s part of life in what you do here. You try to craft things as best you can for your race team. We’ve probably been the most cautious of adding a fourth team among the big teams.”
When asked specifically whether JGR considered signing Kahne without a sponsor as Hendrick did, Gibbs said things just didn’t work out.
“We went through that whole scenario,” Gibbs said. “It’s not something I’m going to go into in detail. But there have been other things we have looked at in other years to try to see if it was the right time to go to a fourth car.
“In each one of those situations, it hasn’t worked out for us where we feel it is something we should do. … A lot goes into are you willing to do that, go to a fourth car? It’s a tough thing. There’s a lot of people to be added, a lot of changes. Up until this point, it hasn’t worked out for us where we thought it was the best decision for us or it didn’t work out for us. I’m going to leave it at that.”
A three-car team, JGR has had an alliance with one other Cup organization (Hall of Fame Racing) and that did not go well. Hendrick has an alliance with Stewart-Haas Racing as well as other teams. Gibbs said JGR constantly analyzes whether it’s best to have such alliances and the landscape of the sport has a tendency to change.
He said NASCAR’s rules, and how the sanctioning body enforces the four-team cap, will dictate how JGR should operate.
“They’re going to be the ones to tell everybody where we’re headed,” Gibbs said. “They set the rules and the rest of us just find the best way to land inside of that. Each one of these race teams is trying to craft what is best for them.”
