Gibbs team isn't rushing expansion
Sunday, Jun. 21, 2009
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SONOMA, CA - JUNE 21: JD Gibbs (L) shakes hands with team owner Rick Hendrick (R) prior to the start of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Toyota/Save Mart 350 at the Infineon Raceway on June 21, 2009 in Sonoma, California. (Photo by Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images for NASCAR)
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LONG POND, PA - JUNE 07: Crew chief Mike Ford (top L corner) speaks with team owner Joe Gibbs (C) in the garage area as crew members work to fix a problem on the #11 FedEx Ground Toyota, driven by Denny Hamlin (not pictured) during the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Pocono 500 on June 7, 2009 at Pocono Raceway in Long Pond, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Jason Smith/Getty Images)
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DARLINGTON, SC - MAY 09: Team owner Joe Gibbs (L) talks with Kyle Busch, driver of the #18 M&M's Toyota, on the grid prior to the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Southern 500 on May 9, 2009 at Darlington Raceway in Darlington, South Carolina. (Photo by Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images for NASCAR)
Joe Gibbs Racing will take the summer to decide if the organization can expand to four teams in 2010.
"We can still plug in a fourth team," team president J.D. Gibbs said. "We're in no hurry. If we have to wait a year, that's fine. You have got to have the right driver, the right core group and the right sponsor. But if that happened, we could do it pretty quick.
"I wouldn't cross it off for next year, but at the same time we're not going to force it."
JGR has been deliberate in its previous expansions and nixed adding a fourth car last year after Tony Stewart left the race team. For now, a bigger priority is figuring out how to get its three current teams running consistently.
Gibbs praised rookie Joey Logano for weathering a tough start to the season, then improving steadily over the last six weeks. But a team meeting held earlier this week with Kyle Busch, the crew chiefs and engineers was called to help the organization understand why its cars aren't performing at the same pace they were last season.
Although Busch has three Cup wins, he's ninth in the Sprint Cup Series standings and has just a 53-point cushion over 13th-place David Reutimann. Denny Hamlin is 10th in the standings, 11 points behind Busch.
"We've just got to do a better job finishing," Gibbs said. "If we finished where we were running in a lot of the races and capitalize on some of the wins we could have gotten, we would be in pretty good shape.
"We're not in horrible shape. The other thing is we have to consistently make gains in the garage to keep up with the other guys."
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