Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, May 8, 1994 TAG: 9405080030
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C-10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BOB ZELLER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHARLOTTE, N.C. LENGTH: Long
Several weeks ago, J.D. Gibbs, the 25-year-old son of Winston Cup team owner Joe Gibbs, competed in his first Late Model Stock Car race at Concord Motor Speedway, a half-mile asphalt track just north of here.
Joe Gibbs remembers the night with mixed feelings.
"At Concord, they were flying," he says. "The very first race he was in, a lap-and-a-half into it, two kids spun and hit the wall. He dodged it. But it took 'em 45 minutes to get them out of the cars and everything else."
It turned out no one was hurt, but it was an unsettling experience for a couple of nervous parents in the grandstands.
After the race, in which J.D. finished seventh, Gibbs recalls his wife, Pat, saying, "That's it for me. From now on, just call me and tell me how he did."
In his third year of fulfilling his lifelong dream of racing, the former coach of the NFL's Washington Redskins has discovered it's one thing to be the owner of a Winston Cup team and quite another to be the father of a race car driver.
"It wouldn't be my choice, really," Gibbs says in an interview at his racing shop. "But if he wants to do it, I'm willing to prayerfully go through it with him. But it scares me.
"It's funny, I talked to [Winston Cup driver] Jimmy Spencer's dad. And here's a guy who drove. I met him at the country club. He looked like a tough guy - drove cars and all this stuff. Jimmy introduces him to me and the first thing he says is, `It's different when your son is driving. I worry the whole time until that thing is over.' "
"And here's a guy . . . You know what I mean?" Gibbs says. "So I guess as a parent it's different. I get more nervous than anybody."
It is difficult for any parent, especially in this year of racing tragedies.
"There's a lot of kids who have been paralyzed in football," Gibbs says. "But that's all I wanted to do - play sports. It wouldn't be worth life to me to sit on the sideline.
"I think in racing it's a similar thing: What's the quality of life?" Gibbs says. "And for some people, it just wouldn't be life if you couldn't race. That's what I wanted to do. But you know that there's a risk."
Whatever risks are involved in racing, Gibbs seems to be firmly planted in his new life.
At 53, he is slim and fit, having shed dozens of pounds from his 6-foot frame.
"When you're being tortured for six months [during the NFL season], I used to at least eat," he says. "I didn't sleep. At night, I'd grab everything in sight. I don't think my stomach ever rested."
Gibbs did not use the Ultra Slim Fast he advertised as a coach, but lost his excess weight with a low-sugar diet and a regular running program.
He does most of his running in a new neighborhood in Lake Norman, about 20 miles north of here. He and Pat have bought a home on a golf course. Their Vienna, Va., home, where they lived through Gibbs' glory years as coach of the Redskins, is on the market.
The Redskins are his legacy, but the 1994 team will bear little resemblance to the team Gibbs coached to his third Super Bowl championship three years ago.
Gibbs had hoped the transition would be as smooth as when George Seifert replaced Bill Walsh as coach of the San Francisco 49ers. But his replacement, Ritchie Petitbon, lost his job after an abysmal year, and the new coach, Norv Turner, has cleaned house.
The Carolina Panthers, of course, would love to install Gibbs as their first coach. And now he has moved into their neighborhood.
Gibbs has turned down the expansion team. No doubt the Panthers will come knocking on his door again this year. And again.
But he really seems to enjoy his new life. He's having more fun than he thought he would as a football analyst for NBC-TV. He also gets tremendous satisfaction from his numerous public-speaking engagements. And he is spending more time with his family than ever before.
Although Gibbs' team won the 1993 Daytona 500 with Dale Jarrett, this year he has discovered just how tough the Winston Cup series really is. The team has had trouble qualifying and almost missed a couple of races. That has fired Gibbs' competitive spirit.
"I had to go through a process of `Do I like this or not?' " he says. "But I get excited about racing. I like the competitive part of it. It is different. I guess it's like starting something brand new at 52 that's a challenge, very competitive and very hard to do.
"And I think when you put everything together - being with my family, what I like doing now, the racing - when I put it all together, I can't see myself going back. I'm not saying I won't. There may be something there that changes my mind. I may get to a point where I feel like all I am is a fifth wheel and I need to do something else.
"But I think more and more I'm getting comfortable with it, and I can help in different ways. And I really enjoy it. I get excited about it."
Gibbs, on the other hand, uses words like "prison," and "torture" and "recluse" when he talks about coaching in the NFL.
Fourteen months have passed since Gibbs walked away from the NFL. Sometimes football will come to mind and he will miss it. More often, he won't.
"Quite often I say, `Man, I'm glad I'm not in that,' " Gibbs says. "That's happened to me a bunch. I tell you what was a revelation to me, it was all of a sudden to have a calendar where there wasn't anything on that thing unless I put it on there.
"It's almost like there's a freedom in that. I definitely have more interaction with people. And I like that a lot. I was pretty much a recluse before. I was locked away at Redskin Park [in Ashburn, Va.]. For three days a week I never went home. And the guys who were around me were the same guys all the time.
"I looked forward to the press sessions each day because the press was somebody fresh to talk to."
And even when he found himself with a spare hour or two during the season, he would feel guilty because he knew there was something else he could be doing for the team.
As an announcer, however, Gibbs still maintains a high profile in the sport. He enjoyed announcing games last season, but he liked studio work better. NBC's pairing of Gibbs and another former coach, Mike Ditka - sort of a Jekyll-and-Hyde pair - was a smashing success.
"I start laughing as soon as I see [Ditka] because he's going to say things I think and wouldn't say," Gibbs says.
"Announcing to me was a surprise," he says. "I wouldn't sign anything but a one-year deal. But I've signed a new three-year deal now and they worked it around racing. I only do 11 weeks in the studio and I miss five for racing. On those weekends I'll do some kind of special segment."
And in his new life, he still gets to coach a little, too. Except the guys wear greasy mechanic's shirts instead of chin straps and pads.
"I talk to them just like I did in football," Gibbs says. "You talk about, `Are we sold on what we're doing? Are we sold on the team? Is there something we need to change? And if there's not, we're going to come out of this because we know we've got good people.'
"But this is a hard deal when it gets going against you."
Keywords:
AUTO RACING
by CNB