Twenty-years ago Washington Redskins head coach Joe Gibbs had a crazy idea. He wanted to start a NASCAR Cup team.
The only problem was all he had was that idea and agreement from Rick Hendrick to provide equipment. That’s it; he had nothing else. But Gibbs, ever the eternal optimist, believed his dream. First things first, he needed a sponsor. Ordinarily football coaches aren’t rainmakers; as generals in the field their minds are usually on the Xs and Os of game day plays, player rosters and recruiting. So how did Gibbs get his first major sponsor, Interstate Batteries? It started with finding a connection with Norm Miller the CEO of the company. “Joe talked to Max Helton (founder of Motor Racing Outreach),” Miller said. “I had never met Max, nor had my brother Tommy (retired Interstate president and CEO), but Max told Joe he heard that the Miller brothers from Interstate Batteries were decent guys and that he ought to call them. “What’s funny is that Joe didn’t even know we were in racing. We had agreed to something like four races in 1991 as an associate with Stanley Smith. Joe was at a race (in May 1991 at Talladega, Ala.) and saw our car and it shocked him. He almost didn’t call.” But Gibbs did call and arranged a meeting in Dallas at the company’s headquarters. It was a long shot. “I kid everyone today, but when we went down there, I almost felt kind of embarrassed,” Gibbs said. “We met with them and we didn’t have a driver, we didn’t have a manufacturer, we didn’t have a building – we didn’t have anything. Basically, all we had was a dream. I just kind of laid out for them our dream and what we wanted to do. And we had a great meeting and really hit it off. “Now, when I walked out of there, I thought, ‘Gosh, this is too much to ask somebody to do. To be a major sponsor on something like this when we don’t have the practical parts and pieces put together is too much to ask.’ Two days later, I made up my mind that that was the case, and I decided I’d call Norm back and say, ‘Would you consider being an associate sponsor?’ So, I called Norm back and described my feelings and said, ‘This is a lot to ask of somebody,’ and pitched him the idea of being an associate sponsor.” You could have knocked Gibbs over with a feather with Miller’s response. “I remember I was downstairs in my house,” Gibbs said. “And Norm goes, ‘I’ve got to tell you the truth. We talked it over and we’re thinking about doing this.’ I thought, ‘Holy Mackerel,’ and I think I almost fainted.” Miller explained that Gibbs’ dream was a perfect fit with Interstate Batteries. “What Joe didn’t realize was that we had surveyed our dealer base and approximately 70 percent had responded that they watched a lot of NFL football and NASCAR,” Miller said. “I’m looking at the numbers and then looked at Joe’s past and he had been a winner in everything he’d done. At the time, he had won two Super Bowls, so I said, ‘If we get him, we’ve got football, because he’s still coaching. We know they love that. We’ll also have NASCAR, and since he’s won everywhere, he ought to win at that. And, even if he doesn’t, the combination of the two is worth the price of the NASCAR sponsorship, only.’ “We had to be there, anyway, because our people told us they loved racing, so we backed up the racing with football. And two weeks before our first race ever, Joe won his third Super Bowl with the Redskins.” That’s how a dream and a meeting of the minds evolved into a Championship Sprint Cup team. Recent Articles
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