Gibson helping SHR gel into dominant team
One of the key players in StewartHaas Racing’s leap to the top shelf of Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series racing this season makes only rare appearances at speedways.
Tony Gibson is SHR’s production manager. It’s a title that doesn’t cover all he does. Gibson has a hand in practically everything except maybe the SHR cookie jar, and his efforts have been important as team drivers have won five of the season’s first 11 races.
Team co-owner Tony Stewart calls Gibson, a 53-year-old former crew chief who has worked with a string of successful drivers, the “floor babysitter. He’s made a huge impact. You really need somebody of his caliber on the floor to really tie this all together. What we’ve seen here is him tie all four of these teams together at the shop and kind of watching over everything and make sure that we’re staying the course.”
Gibson was Kurt Busch’s crew chief at SHR last season, but after many years traveling NASCAR pit roads, he was ready for a job that allowed him more stay-at-home days and time to spend with 9-month-old grandson Luke. Making him the boss over the production of cars for the four team drivers seemed the perfect solution. He moved into the new role in December.
His first goal, Gibson said, was to put similar cars in the hands of Kevin Harvick, Clint Bowyer, Aric Almirola and Busch, streamlining the in-house building process so that each team could add its own at-track touches to an identical foundation.
The move clearly has shown benefits, with Harvick leading the series with four victories and Bowyer ending a long drought with a win at Martinsville Speedway. Busch and Almirola also have run well.
“We didn’t want to make it an assembly line,” Gibson said. “That’s not where we were headed, but 95% of our race cars now are the same, at least in the main structure. That helps a ton.
“I struggled with that when I was a crew chief. It wasn’t bad when we had a two-car team, but when you get four cars, it makes it a mess when drivers are trying to communicate with each other. When you’re not comparing the same thing, it’s kind of hard to do.”
As an example, Gibson said, two drivers with very similar cars can switch to different setups at the race sites then compare the two to determine which would be the better move for both cars.
“There was some push and shove at the start, but I think after we started showing results as far as all four teams being competitive, everybody has kind of seen the light and realized we’re a whole lot better being close together,” Gibson said.
Gibson has attended only three of the first 11 races. This leaves more time for fishing and hunting. And for Luke.