TONY GIBSON: Crew Chief, No. 39 Chevrolet
Birthdate:
Birthplace:
Hometown:
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Spouse:
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Nov. 3, 1964
Daytona Beach, Fla.
Daytona Beach, Fla.
Concord, N.C.
Beth
Lainee
Daytona Beach Community College (Tool and Dye Making)
As a crew chief in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, Tony Gibson calls the shots for driver Ryan Newman 38 weekends a
year from atop No. 39 Stewart-Haas Racing team pit box. But for Gibson the racer, his responsibilities don’t end with just
making the right calls.
The Daytona Beach, Fla., native takes a hands-on approach with his race car and team. At any given time, Gibson can be
found crawling underneath his cars or turning wrenches beneath the hood.
From the Stewart-Haas Racing shop in Kannapolis, N.C., to each of the 22 tracks the Sprint Cup Series visits, he oversees
every aspect of the development of the team’s No. 39 Chevrolets. Gibson takes great pride in working with his cars –
from bare chassis, to hanging the car’s body, to painting and decaling the car, to setting up the car for each track – he
wants to be there with his racecars each and every step of the way.
“My dad always told me that you don’t ever want to get yourself detached from the racecar,” Gibson said. “You need to
know what you have, what you’ve got and what you’re working on at all times. I guess that has just stuck with me.”
It’s lessons like that which Gibson’s dad, Bo, taught him in the family race shop in Florida that have helped shaped his
career and made him the passionate and hands-on crew chief that he is today.
“When you are with that car from when it’s nothing but a bare chassis to when it comes off the setup plate and is loaded
for the track – when you put that whole package together, you are so proud when you go out to the track and it runs well,”
Gibson said. “That’s the part of racing that really means a lot to me.”
It was that old-school racer mentality that attracted Gibson to Stewart-Haas Racing, a team co-owned by two-time Sprint
Cup champion Tony Stewart.
“The appealing part was to work for an owner who is as passionate about racing as I am,” said Gibson, who came to
Stewart-Haas Racing after serving as crew chief for Dale Earnhardt Inc.’s No. 8 team. “Before we agreed to anything, I
sat down and talked to Tony. Just to see the passion in his eyes and the way he talked about what he wanted to
accomplish, not only with his team but with Ryan, too. It helped make the decision easy for me.”
The challenge of working with a new organization and a new driver also sparked Gibson’s interest. Although Gibson
hadn’t worked with Newman prior to their time at Stewart-Haas, the two immediately formed a bond that serves them
well at the track.
Gibson and Newman have found that they share a common interest in the outdoors. The two have told stories and sent
text messages to each other about hunting trips and fishing expeditions, and of course, they have each bragged about being
the more skilled outdoorsman.
“My bond and the team’s bond with him are stronger than people realize,” Gibson said. “We’ve built a relationship
outside of racing based on our interests of hunting and fishing. The cool thing is that Ryan is just like a lot of us on this
team. He gets up at 5 a.m. to go hunting or fishing and he will do it rain or shine.
“We’ve built this relationship and we understand each other. It’s made for a smooth transition that allows us to
communicate and understand each other even better on a work level.”
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Tony Gibson Crew Chief Biography
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Gibson’s friendship with Newman is not the only thing that helped the transition at Stewart-Haas Racing, as most of
Gibson’s crew from Dale Earnhardt Inc., moved with him to the No. 39 team.
“This team has been together for almost nine years,” said Gibson, who himself has been a crew chief in the Sprint Cup
Series since 2002. “We’ve been through a lot of changes, different drivers, and no matter what, this team has always
stayed together. We’re like a band of brothers, and Ryan just fits us.”
The close-knit crew is something that Gibson has been accustomed to throughout his racing career, which started when he
was just a kid in Daytona Beach. Racing was the family business, and that was all he ever knew from the time he was just
a baby. In fact, Gibson was on hand for one of his dad’s team’s numerous wins at Volusia County (Fla.) Speedway when
he was just six weeks old.
“My dad’s car won the race one night,” Gibson said. “My mom and grandmother and grandfather were in the grandstand
and they got so excited, they took off running down the bleachers to get their picture taken in victory lane on the
frontstretch. They got down there and my mom realized that she left me up there in my (car seat) on the bleachers.
“It’s a pretty funny story. My first racing experience was being left in the bleachers when I was a baby.”
Gibson’s passion for racing only grew from that moment. He worked on his dad’s and brother’s cars as they raced at local
short tracks around central Florida. Gibson worked side-by-side with his dad to help his brother, Mark, win the track title
at New Smyrna (Fla.) Speedway in 1978. Gibson continued to work on his family’s cars until he finished school. After
graduating from Daytona Beach Community College with a degree as a tool and dye maker, Gibson moved to North
Carolina to further his racing career in NASCAR.
Throughout the 1980s, Gibson worked various jobs in the racing industry. He hung bodies on cars and worked with
various NASCAR Nationwide and Sprint Cup Series teams. And it was while working as a body hanger that he met and
struck up a friendship with the late Alan Kulwicki, a driver/owner in the Sprint Cup Series who was renting a portion of
the same shop Gibson was working in. Gibson joined Kulwicki’s team in 1986 as a mechanic.
The small team considered themselves underdogs each time they went to the racetrack, and they thrived on the challenge
of competing against the bigger teams with more money. Against all odds, Kulwicki’s team won the Sprint Cup
championship in 1992 with Gibson serving as car chief.
From 1993 to 1997, Gibson worked for two-time Sprint Cup champion Bill Elliott. From there, he moved to Hendrick
Motorsports where he worked on the No. 24 car with driver Jeff Gordon. He enjoyed another title run in 1998, and yet
another in 2001 as Gordon’s car chief.
During the 2002 season, Gibson moved to Dale Earnhardt Inc., where he served in various roles. He worked as the crew
chief for Steve Park and later Michael Waltrip before moving into the car chief position with Dale Earnhardt Jr., in 2005.
And in his car chief role with Earnhardt Jr., Gibson was tabbed to take over crew chief duties during two six-race stints in
2007.
In 2008, Gibson moved over to Dale Earnhardt Inc.’s No. 8 Chevrolet, which was piloted by veteran Mark Martin for 24
races and rookie Aric Almirola for the other 12. In his first full season as a Sprint Cup crew chief, Gibson led his team to
four top-five and 12 top-10 finishes.
The 2009 season began yet another chapter in Gibson’s illustrious racing career that has spanned four decades since he
was just a young boy tinkering on cars in his dad’s garage as he took the helm of the new No. 39 Stewart-Haas team. It
was a role that Gibson embraced with a quiet confidence and determination that was contagious among his team.
“Ryan got the name ‘Rocketman’ for a reason, and we want to get him back to where he is a threat to sit on the pole every
week,” Gibson said. “We want to win races, and making the Chase is definitely one of our goals. With this team, the
driver, the owner and the support that we have, all of our goals are achievable.”
Although the team didn’t win a race during the 2009 season, Gibson & Company achieved their goal of making the Chase
for the Sprint Cup Championship. In 2009, the No. 39 team scored two poles – Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway and
Martinsville (Va.) Speedway – five top-five and 15 top-10 finishes en route to a ninth-place finish in the points.
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Tony Gibson Crew Chief Biography
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The No. 39 team, as well as the No. 14 team with Stewart, led all Sprint Cup drivers in laps completed in 2009 in only the
team’s first season. Newman and Stewart each completed 10,468 of a possible 10,492 laps over the 36-race points-paying
season – an incredible 99.8 percent. They failed to complete just 24 laps and they both finished all but one race – the fall
event at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway.
“That first year was a great season for us, but it was also a frustrating season,” Gibson said. “We had everything we
needed at Stewart-Haas Racing to have a successful team from the beginning of the season. We achieved our goals of
making the Chase, but not winning a race that first season was frustrating because we felt like we had opportunities, and
we didn’t capitalize on them.”
The 2010 season saw the No. 39 team earn that coveted first win in April at Phoenix International Raceway. It snapped a
77-race winless streak for Newman, but it also served as Gibson’s first victory as a crew chief.
“A lot of those guys were in tears in victory lane, because most of us have been together for nine years,” Gibson
said. “We won with Dale (Earnhardt) Jr., and it had been a long stretch since we’d won a race. We had come close, but
we didn’t make it happen. So it was pretty exciting for those guys. And I’m more happy and more proud for those guys
than for myself because I feel like those guys have followed me wherever I’ve gone. I feel like I owe it to them to see
those guys hopping up and jumping up and down. It just brings back memories. It’s awesome.”
Gibson, 45, resides in Concord, N.C., with his wife Beth and daughter Lainee.
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