There’s an old saying that right behind the NASCAR acronym in terms of importance is the acronym P&P, which stands for people and partnerships.
Veteran NASCAR team owner Joe Gibbs is the perfect example of that. There’s no question that Gibbs has assembled nearly 500 employees who give Joe Gibbs Racing their all. That’s the people part.
And then there’s the other ‘P,’ namely, partnerships.
In a business where sponsorships can be fleeting—some not even lasting one year—the three-time Super Bowl champion (1983, 1988, and 1992) has maintained one of the longest partnerships in the business with Norm Miller and Interstate Batteries.
The relationship between Gibbs and Miller is now in its 33rd year – the longest continuing partnership in NASCAR – and shows no signs of slowing down. In fact, just before the current season began, Interstate and JGR announced a multi-year contract extension that will take the relationship into a fourth decade together.
“When our family, my two boys and (wife) Pat, all of us talked about getting into racing, we put a dream on a piece of paper and showed up on Norm Miller’s doorstep, and that’s 33 years ago,” Gibbs said on a recent edition of SpeedFreaks. “Think about that. To still have a partnership that’s critical for us in racing – our sport is totally different than football, basketball, and baseball.
“You’ve got to have a sponsor, and I say it’s more than a sponsor, it’s a partner, and that truly is what we are with Interstate Batteries. Think about a partnership like this that can go 33 years, and we’re still crisscrossing the country.”
“Interstate is all across America, in every county, and for us to represent them in front of our fan base and America, it’s exciting for us, and to see their company be so successful over that period of time,” he added.
“We’re just excited to have a company like this. We’re setting a record right now in NASCAR to be together with a sponsor, your founding sponsor. You walk in our building, that’s what you’re going to see, you’re going to see Interstate Batteries, and it is every time we’re in the winner’s circle, we’re holding that green battery because they got us here.”
Interstate Had Faith, Confidence in JGR Right From The Start
Even though JGR didn’t even have a building, cars, or many employees early on, Miller saw something in the organization and Gibbs’ leadership and vision of where it hoped both would grow together, and that relationship has led to numerous Cup and Xfinity wins and championships.
“When we first began our partnership with Joe Gibbs Racing in 1992, we had around 120,000 dealers comprised of service stations, garages, and car dealers that sold our batteries, but we didn’t have a national reputation,” Miller said prior to this year’s Daytona 500.
“Joe Gibbs Racing gave Interstate Batteries national recognition. Joe was still in the NFL and coaching in Washington, and then Dale Jarrett delivered our first win together in the first race of our second season.
“We already saw that the partnership was working during our inaugural season together, but that 1993 Daytona 500 win really put Interstate Batteries on the map. It helped us secure national accounts because we had strong name recognition among consumers. That recognition remains true to this day as we enter our 73rd year delivering ‘Outrageously Dependable’ (the company’s slogan) batteries.”
Gibbs is both an astute former football coach as well as an astute businessman. Interstate was there when Gibbs first started his racing operation, which at the time included both a fledgling NASCAR team and an NHRA drag racing team.
Gibbs was originally an amateur drag racer himself in his late teens and early 20s before he turned his attention to coaching football.
“To stay in a relationship like this for this long, it’s got to be great for both partners,” Gibbs said. “Certainly, we hope it is for Interstate, and we think it has been. It’s a close relationship. We do all kinds of things together besides being at the racetrack and hospitalities and (with) all of their distributors across America. It’s a huge deal for us as we visit with them.
“Our complex here in Charlotte, we just had the Interstate group in here two weeks ago. Our whole facility here is geared towards them. We have conference rooms, we have a theater-style auditorium, we can do a sit-down dinner here for 350, so our complex is also geared for our sponsors, and Interstate obviously, they fit our demographic. Obviously, we’re racing cars and they’re selling batteries, they keep cars going.”
