Mechanical issues have plagued all three Gibbs cars this season at various times, creating a frustration level often unseen in teams running so well. Kyle Busch enters Sunday's race fifth in the Sprint Cup standings, Tony Stewart is sixth and Denny Hamlin, the winner last week at Martinsville Speedway, is eighth.
"It's hard. All they know is they broke a part and it kept them from winning a race," Jimmy Makar, senior vice president of racing operations at JGR, said Friday.
"I understand their frustration. All we can do is get to work. There's nothing you can do but fix the problem and show them that it's fixed
- be proactive about the issues we've been having."
The problems have been widespread, and usually come when a Gibbs car is running near the front.
Hamlin's power steering failed in Atlanta, and he had a fuel pickup issue while leading on a restart in the closing laps at Bristol
- the same problem Stewart had moments before when Hamlin passed him for the lead.
Busch has had the worst luck, losing his power steering in Bristol - while leading
- then breaking a rear gear last week in Martinsville. A broken gasket also took him out of contention at his home track in Las Vegas.
Busch, who scored Toyota's first Cup victory with his win last month in Atlanta, figures he's probably lost three races because of mechanical failures and took his concerns to team owner Joe Gibbs.
"It's pretty frustrating, but anytime you do have a problem, at least it hasn't happened twice," Busch said. "We've been working on things to try and only make it happen once. In talking to Joe, it's kind of a
'Shame on us' to have it happen once. But it's a problem when it's twice.
"Fortunately, we haven't had the same problem twice yet."
But the broken steering box plagued both Hamlin and Busch, baffling the entire Gibbs organization. Makar said the team has yet to pinpoint what happened to Hamlin's, but said Busch's failure a week later was an assembly issue.
"In all my years of racing, I've never, ever, seen that problem once let alone twice," Makar said. "The comforting thing is that we know this isn't because we have bad mechanics. We know our people are good. But sometimes you run into problems with outside vendors, and we think that's been the cause of many of our issues so far this year."
That's comforting to Hamlin, who has a history of being outspoken when his car has problems. His frustration over mechanical failures had been building toward a slow boil when he finally broke through with the win last week in Martinsville.
"Between myself and (Busch) with the steering box issues, they were assembly issues at the factory," Hamlin said. "That is something we really can't change at our organization. It's really just a freak thing why it's happening to all three cars so regularly.
