RELATED: Havick plans to ‘pound’ JGR
CHICAGO — Before cars ever turned a lap at Daytona back in February, Joe Gibbs Racing made its season-long aspirations clear in the new-look organization’s first meeting: Place all four teams into the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup playoffs.
Several months later, with the Chase about to dawn at Chicagoland Speedway, the JGR operation isn’t just one quarter of the 16-team postseason field, it’s also a prohibitive favorite to claim Coach Joe Gibbs’ first premier series championship since 2005.
“I think we have a great shot,” Denny Hamlin, the team’s longest-tenured driver, said at the annual Chase Media Day at The Murphy in downtown Chicago. “Coming into this last year, we had our cars come in but we weren’t running that well. We made it to the final four, but we were very consistent and we ran top-five when it really, really counted. This year, I definitely feel like we have more opportunities to make it to the final four. We all said at the beginning of the year that we wanted to be the last four guys standing and give Joe his first championship in a really long time, and I don’t see why that can’t happen.
“Pretty optimistic right now that JGR’s got a great shot — four shots at a championship.”
RELATED: Cain: Is 2015 the year for JGR?
Joe Gibbs Racing expanded in the offseason, adding a fourth team with veteran Carl Edwards making the switch from Ford to Toyota. The team also made a drastic shuffle in personnel, switching up the driver-crew chief alignment for three of its four cars. All of the changes came in response to its lackluster performance in 2014 — though all three drivers qualified for the Chase, JGR won just twice in the regular season to limp into the playoffs.
The offseason changes clicked. This year, Joe Gibbs Racing carries the built-up steam of eight victories in the final 11 races of the regular season. Three of the team’s four drivers — Edwards, Matt Kenseth and Kyle Busch — are winners of multiple races this season, with Hamlin prevailing at familiar haunt Martinsville Speedway.
With one part of the preseason goals met, JGR makes a compelling case for a clean sweep of the Championship 4 in the Homestead-Miami finale Nov. 22. Though racing against teammates with a title on the line might be a delicate dance, Edwards said it would be a happy problem to have.
“No, I don’t think that would be weird,” Edwards said. “I think that was Matt Kenseth‘s statement the first meeting we had in the first 30 seconds of the meeting this year. He said that should be our mission and that’s what he believes we can do and we need to work towards that. I had fun racing with those guys when we were 1-2-3-4 at Richmond the other night. I mean, that’s as good as it gets.”
The team has benefited most from the healthy return of Busch, who missed the first 11 weeks of the season with severe leg injuries after a crash in the NASCAR XFINITY Series opener. Busch didn’t miss a step in his comeback, quickly developing a bond with new crew chief Adam Stevens to rattle off four wins in short order and cement his place among the top 30 in driver points in just 15 races.
Busch’s ascent dovetailed nicely with JGR’s improvement, but Kenseth suggested that each development fed off the other.
“Both — I think it kind of happened at the same time, but I think there was a lot of things that went to that, but certainly having the teammates that I have makes this all better,” Kenseth said. “All of them are capable of winning races on any given week and getting Kyle back in that car and getting him with Adam — obviously they’ve got great chemistry together and they were able to win right out of the gate. That certainly helped us all.”
The only potential distraction to Gibbs’ championship efforts — Hamlin’s ACL injury before the regular-season finale — was quickly put to rest. Hamlin, who placed sixth last weekend at Richmond, walked into Chase Media Day without assistance from crutches.
Both Hamlin and Busch are facing the likelihood of offseason surgery to further address their injuries, but Joe Gibbs Racing enters the playoffs at full strength.
“What I’ve seen out of JGR — being there in the meetings with Coach and TRD (Toyota Racing Development) and the drivers — we should win the championship,” Edwards said. “I mean we really should. These teams are so strong right now and the cars are fast and really we just keep doing what we’re doing, ignore the — whatever anybody says — the performance speaks for itself. It’s really cool.”
CHASE GAMES: Chase Grid Battle | Perfect Grid Challenge