Motorsports

Redskins a bigger project than Cup

By BRANT JAMES, Times wires
Published January 26, 2005

HUNTERSVILLE, N.C. - Joe Gibbs is a race team owner who happens to coach in the NFL. Nextel Cup racing, he said, will be part of his and his family's lives forever. Football, he said, is temporary, perhaps very temporary.

"My time in football will be short," said Gibbs, who went 6-10 in his return to the Redskins after 12 seasons. "And if we don't win a few more games next year, maybe real short."

Gibbs did not specify how long he plans to stay with the Redskins but expressed a desire to lead the team, with which he won three Super Bowls, "back to respectability." He is in the second of a five-year contract. Gibbs took son Coy, a former Busch Series driver, with him as an assistant.

"The Redskins took my dad and my brother, then it took away my babysitter (Gibbs' wife), which was the worst part," said J.D. Gibbs, laughing.

Joe Gibbs, who started his race team in 1992, admitted to doubts about his decision to return to the NFL when the team faltered. The Redskins finished last in the NFC East. Gibbs rated his return to the the NFL a D.

"I was out and I had to prove myself all over again," he said. "A lot of first-year coaches did better than I did."

Gibbs attended the media tour while on vacation and said he plans to attend the Daytona 500 and the March 13 Las Vegas race before returning to Redskins duties.

FOUR MORE YEARS: Team owner Ray Evernham, making an analogy between the debut of his one-car team Nextel Cup team in 2001 and current multi-car, multi-series operation, compared himself to President Bush at a media event in his Statesville, N.C., race shop. Sort of.

"(But) I didn't raise your taxes," he said, "and the only person I went to war with was Tony Stewart and I ended that peacefully."

Last season Evernham, an amateur boxer, suggested he and Stewart settle their differences outside the track at Chicago after Stewart wrecked one of his drivers, Kasey Kahne.

Evernham's Cup program now includes full-time teams for Jeremy Mayfield, a Chase for the Championship qualifier; rookie of the year Kahne; a full-time Busch Series team with Paul Wolfe and a two-person driver development program.

SAID SO: Boris Said knows he will make some people nervous in his 10- to 15-race schedule with MB Sutton Motorsports. An accomplished road racer, he has made just four of his 13 Nextel Cup starts on ovals. So he figures some foes will be jittery in the 180 mph draft in the Daytona 500 - should he qualify.

"It's not if he's going to wreck, it's on what lap and how many people is he going to take out," said Said, laughing about the perception. Said finished 10th in the Bud Shootout last year.

EXPIRATION DATE: Joe Nemechek, 41, has a novel way to quell the yearly retirement speculation about Nextel Cup's 40-somethings.

"I'll be done when I'm 50," he said. "I think NASCAR should mandate when you're 50, you shouldn't be racing full-time anymore."

SPARK PLUGS: Joe Gibbs Racing will continue to use Reggie White Motorsports as the name for its driver diversity program. White died Dec. 26 from a respiratory ailment. Tampa resident Aric Almirola will run his second Late Models campaign for the team at various tracks this season. All cars in the program will use No. 92, which White wore in his NFL career. ... Not surprisingly, Lowe's Motor Speedway president H.A. "Humpy" Wheeler is an advocate of building a possible national stock car racing hall of fame in Charlotte. "This is where they put the peach basket up," he said, referring to Charlotte hosting the first NASCAR race in 1949. ... Ten Formula One teams - all but Ferrari - agreed to limit testing to 30 days a season. Ferrari won't adhere to the new rule, team spokesman Luca Colajanni said. ... Tony Cotman was appointed vice president of operations for the Champ Car World Series. Cotman is the former team manager for Andretti Green Racing in the rival Indy Racing League.

[Last modified January 26, 2005, 00:13:15]