Joe Gibbs knows a thing or two about managing high-maintenance talent at the highest level. The Hall of Fame team owner recently talked about two of the biggest personalities to ever drive for Joe Gibbs Racing, Tony Stewart and Kyle Busch, and answered the question: who was harder to handle?
On Kevin Harvick’s Happy Hour podcast, Gibbs said working with both drivers came with its challenges. But the reward, he said, was worth it.
“Kyle Busch and Tony, they were both very super talented, and both of them a little bit alike,” Joe Gibbs said. “Every now and then there were some challenges. But really they helped build our race team; they really did.”
Stewart won two Cup Series championships and 33 races before leaving in 2008 to start Stewart-Haas Racing. Busch joined JGR that same year and won two titles and 56 races, second only to Denny Hamlin on the team’s all-time list.
With that much success came a whole lot of personality.
Tony Stewart was a straight shooter and never hid his feelings with anyone including the media, other drivers or even his team. Like Kyle Busch, he was outspoken, overly competitive and intense to the point of not apologizing. The two were as much off-the-track headline-makers as they were on-track. But Gibbs didn’t sound like he’d trade the experience for anything.
“I appreciated both of them so much because… they won a ton,” Joe Gibbs added.
When Harvick asked him to say who was harder to handle, Gibbs didn’t bite. Instead, he leaned into how similar they were. Raw talent, strong personalities and a deep desire to win. Managing them was not an issue of taming them, but instead keeping all the energy and aiming it at something positive. And according to Gibbs they were not always the easiest to deal with, but they were always worth it.
And in the end, both Stewart and Busch helped build Joe Gibbs Racing into the team it is today. A team built not just on results but on big personalities who didn’t know how to do things halfway.
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