For as long as stock cars race in circles, there may never be another figure quite like Joe Gibbs. Not just because of his successes, or his magnetic personality, or his ability to transition from one Hall of Fame career to the next. No, there's something else almost sure to separate the former football coach and current NASCAR car owner from all those who will come after him.

It's that Gibbs wins, not just with people he's hired, but with cars and engines that his employees have built themselves. Joe Gibbs Racing has been around for 19 years now, which makes it the youngest of the five big organizations that dominate competition at NASCAR's highest level. But given the contraction that's eaten away at the sport's middle class, the glut of mergers and acquisitions, and a recession that has reshaped NASCAR as we know it, the Gibbs team may very well be the last operation to set up shop and win races and championships while building everything in-house.

Because the trend is heading full throttle in the opposite direction, a result of the cost-cutting and downsizing that have become almost necessary for organizations to survive. Virtually all of the mid-level teams in NASCAR's premier division, those that may not be championship contenders but are a threat to steal a race win here are there, get their engines from somewhere else. Many get their chassis from elsewhere, too. Gibbs started that way as well, leasing engines and shop space from Hendrick Motorsports in 1991 until his fledging, 15-person operation got off the ground.

Outsourcing actually has a long history in NASCAR, given that Banjo Matthews built most of the sport's winning cars between 1974 and 1985, and Holman-Moody churned out Fords for the better part of 30 years. But as recently as a decade ago, keeping everything in-house -- not counting the usual array of vendor-supplied parts, a number that's shrunk as big teams try to increase quality control -- was virtually standard practice. Petty Enterprises operated its own engine shop, as did Dale Earnhardt Inc., as did Ray Evernham when he broke into the sport in 2001. For a while, engines built by Robert Yates Racing were among the best in NASCAR. Even Alan Kulwicki, running a one-car operation, started building his own engines three years before he won the title.

Those days are gone. Through a series of acquisitions the Petty team has morphed into Richard Petty Motorsports, which obtains chassis, engines, and technical support from Roush-Fenway Racing. Stewart-Haas Racing, which placed two cars in the Chase last season, gets the same things from Hendrick. Michael Waltrip Racing and Red Bull get engines and technical support from Toyota Racing Development. Richard Childress Racing and Roush-Fenway struck deals with other organizations to form engine-building consortiums. There's no shame in partnering with another organization; in fact, given economic pressures, it seems almost prohibitive to operate a race team any other way. (Continued)