HOMESTEAD, Fla. — Tony Stewart and Joe Gibbs go way back.
Stewart started his NASCAR Cup Series career racing for the Pro Football Hall of Famer in 1999 and continued competing for Joe Gibbs Racing through the 2008 season, winning two of his three career championships in the No. 20 car.
After 10 seasons working together with a relationship that has lasted much longer, the 2020 NASCAR Hall of Fame inductees have some incredible stories about each other.
As two NASCAR team owners with championship-contending drivers, they shared the stage Friday at Homestead-Miami Speedway ahead of Sunday’s Cup Series title race when Gibbs drivers Kyle Busch, Denny Hamlin and Martin Truex Jr. and Stewart-Haas Racing’s Kevin Harvick will race to win it all.
They also shared some of those stories about their days working together.
When Tony Stewart would take his anger out on the TVs…
During Friday’s press conference, Gibbs, who’s a few days away from 79th birthday, was asked about scolding his drivers, particularly Hamlin, who crashed his car during practice for the 2019 Daytona 500.
Hamlin recalled Thursday that the former Washington Redskins coach was “furious” and told Hamlin he was paying for the wrecked car. Luckily, Hamlin ended up winning the Daytona 500, so Gibbs eventually forgave him.
As Gibbs explained how he remembers that moment, Stewart chimed in at one point (around the 11-minute mark):
Gibbs: I don’t think I’ve ever penalized anybody for anything, but I threaten them every now and then.
Stewart: That’s not true.
Gibbs: On second thought, there is a driver I’ve worked with where we —
Stewart: I had to pay for two TVs in the lounge of the trailer that I broke.
Gibbs: I used to try and get to the hauler as fast as I could if he had a bad night because he was going to tear up the inside of the hauler.
Stewart: I feel like I got pretty good odds out of it because I think I broke five TVs before he finally said, “If you break another one, this one’s coming out of your paycheck.”
Gibbs: Hey, listen. I got him at Richmond one time. I beat him in there real quick. And you were ticked off. And he’s in there all flustered and everything, and he goes like — they usually turn to me after tearing stuff up — he goes, “I oughta go out there and kick his ass [the driver he was mad at].” And I went like this, I started to go, “OK, I think you should!” Hoping somebody will put a lump on you.
Stewart: See, as a good owner you should have thought of that first, and I would have saved the trailer.
“How it all started,” according to Tony Stewart
Before making his NASCAR Cup Series debut, Stewart was splitting his time between the second-tier XFINITY Series (then the Busch Grand National Series) and IndyCar. He said (at the 29:30 mark) after he was injured in an IndyCar race, he was living with his mom and stepdad for a month.
Stewart: My buddies had been calling all day, and it was AJ Foyt and then it was Mario Andretti and then it was Steve Kinser and this and that. None of them were. It was all my buddies saying who they were. So my mom answers the phone, it’s 10 o’clock at night, and my mom goes, “It’s Joe Gibbs.” I’m like, “Oh, great. Sure, here we go. Which one of these [expletive] is it now?” So they hand the phone over to me, and I’m like, “Hey, Joe, how the hell are you?” He goes, “Tony?” And I’m like, “Oh, my god, it really is Joe Gibbs.”
So that’s the way our whole relationship, literally from the first phone call on — because I obviously had to explain to him why I was being an idiot, other than I was heavily medicated. Had to explain to him why I was being the way I was. But that’s the way we’ve always been with each other. We’ve always had fun with each other. But I think as much as we’ve had fun, we’ve always had a high level of respect for each other as well.
Joe Gibbs knew who to call if he couldn’t find Tony Stewart
This one just speaks for itself (around the 30:35 mark).
Gibbs: I’ve got to tell you, I was chasing him all over the place trying to get him signed and trying to get things worked out. I’ve got to tell this. I don’t think you care [about] me telling it.
Stewart: Do you really have to tell this?
Gibbs: So I couldn’t find him lots of times, I would call the girlfriend. I would call the girlfriend, OK, and she would tell me where he was and everything. So about the third time I called the girlfriend, she goes, “That no-good rotten — don’t you ever call this house again.” I went, well, that was done.
Stewart: We were ready to hold auditions again. It was time. What can I say? All right, we need to talk about something now, oh, boy.
Gibbs: We need to get back to racing.
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