- I feel like at kinda where we were,
we had come into the sport, loved what we were doin',
had a very good relationship with GM,
but inside of GM, you got Childress,
had won a lot of championships,
you got Hendricks, who won a lot of championships.
We were the young guys comin' in,
and so we kinda felt like, inside of GM,
we were always gonna be 3rd.
We started thinking about Toyota
and having a relationship with them.
It was obvious to us that we would have a chance
if we went over and performed, did a good job,
that we could maybe be the premiere team.
It came to us that Toyota would maybe wanna talk to us,
it was a huge decision.
We had to go to all of our other partners
and talk to them.
You're always apprehensive
when you make a big move like that, when we moved over.
I gotta tell ya, really smooth,
everybody appreciated the fact
and the reasons why we've made that move.
- We found the perfect partner for us.
Coach isn't in it for anything but race wins
and championships, he is passionate like we are.
His team, his sole focus is this,
just like ours is.
Our sole focus, competing and winning races.
- We wouldn't have been able
to bring Joe Gibbs Racing on board
were it not for the partnership that we had
with the likes of Bill Davis, and Red Bull,
and Michael Waltrip.
They were a big part of helping get through
that growth phase, and then that learning phase.
We captured lightning in a bottle.
- We started off originally doing our own motors,
and it became obvious that Toyota TRD could do a better job.
One of the things I love about NASCAR,
the owners compete.
It's our race team versus the other owners.
The drivers compete, and the OEM's compete.
We know what the goal is, and we wanna do it the right way,
but I think the big thing for us by teamin' up,
and Toyota choosin' to do it a different way
than the other manufacturers,
I think it's paid big dividends,
and we think we've got a great partnership.
We share everything with Toyota.
- We never forced anybody to share
what they weren't comfortable sharing,
but we developed benchmarking tools
that allowed Joe Gibbs Racing, and Michael Waltrip Racing
to kind of compete against each other
in certain forms of technology,
and there was a period of about a couple of years
where that really started to work for both organizations.
They literally became better
because of that level of competition,
and at the time, the common denominator was the engine.
We were building engines for both organizations,
so that kind of took the engine piece of the competition
off the table, and they were able to focus on the chassis.
On the emotional level, it was a little bit difficult,
but over time, we came to demonstrate
that in the end, all boats in the harbor
were able to be lifted by the same tide.
- [Announcer] A bit of history at Atlanta Motor Speedway,
it took just 40 races for Toyota to claim its first win
in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series.
It goes to Kyle Busch as he takes the Kobalt Tools 500.
- Atlanta being where I got my first win,
the thing I remember most is the last 10 laps of the race.
There was lap cars everywhere, and everybody had figured out
that the bottom, huggin' that yellow line
was the place to be.
I just kept my car down there every lap, every time.
Comin' home and being able to win that race,
so weight-lifting, 'cause of all the transition that I made
in the beginning of that year
from the previous year where I was at
with Hendrick Motorsports, to join Joe Gibbs Racing,
to join Toyota, and to join M&M's Mars,
and everything else.
There's so much pressure to be able
to go out there and perform,
almost like you're a rookie again,
that you've gotta reprove yourself
even though I had been a Cup Series winner
in the years prior.
- Gosh, I think back to that first year,
I can still remember Kyle Busch climbin' outta that car,
and our first Cup win, and from that point on,
it's been a thrill for us.