Gibbs happy juggling football and racing

CHARLOTTE, N.C. - Joe Gibbs is passionate about football, but doesn't intend to stay in coaching much longer.

He's also passionate about NASCAR, and plans to stay a part of the sport for a considerable period of time.

"My time in football will be short," Gibbs said Tuesday during a stop by the NASCAR media tour at Joe Gibbs Racing. "Hopefully, we'll be here forever. If we don't win a few more games next year, my time in football will be real short."

In his return to the NFL after an 11-year absence - during which he established his successful NASCAR team - Gibbs' Washington Redskins struggled to a 6-10 record. It was the worst showing in the Hall of Fame coach's 13 seasons with the franchise.

As much as he loves racing, Gibbs, who took his team to four Super Bowls and won three of them in his first stint in Washington, is determined to get the Redskins back near the top before calling that career quits and returning to JGR on a permanent basis.

"I signed a five-year contract and what I'd like to do is get the Redskins back to being a consistent winner," Gibbs said. "I don't know what that will take. I don't know if it's five years or a little longer than that."

Meanwhile, the racing operation is in the hands of his eldest son, J.D., and general manager Jimmy Makar, an original Joe Gibbs Racing employee.

"We started with 17 people and now we've got 250," the elder Gibbs said. "It's a big responsibility, but J.D. and Jimmy and the rest of the senior management group do a great job. When I'm away, they call me when they need advice, and that's not much."

The big difference between the two sports for Gibbs is the schedule and weight of responsibility on his shoulders.

"It's so time consuming in the NFL for those 4½ months," he said. "It's a real structured thing and it's a drain, a real strain.

"It's totally different than this sport. Here, I'm ownership. I have that senior management group and racing can continue without me being here on a full-time basis."

Gibbs acknowledges there were times during the NFL season when he wondered why he went back to football.

"I think when you do something like that, you miss this," he said. "I did. And, of course, you hit on bad times up there and you have those normal feelings of 'What in the world did I do?' But I love football and I love the challenge it presents.

"And we're always going to be in racing."

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TIME TO SHINE: Team owner Ray Evernham showed off a 25-man engineering staff - one of the biggest in NASCAR - and sounded a warning to the rest of the Nextel Cup series at the team's shop in Statesville, N.C.

"It's a pivotal year," said Evernham, who fields cars full-time for Jeremy Mayfield and top 2004 rookie Kasey Kahne. "No excuses this year. We need consistency.

"In 2004, we won only one race, and there was a lot of inconsistency and poor pit stops that hurt us. But we have the tools now to fix that. We have a growing engineering department and engineering is going to lead us into the future."

Evernham said he also has hired two new pit crew coaches and the crews are practicing their stops each day.

"Believe me, these guys are working their butts off and it's going to pay off during the season," Evernham said.

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NEW BOSS: Hendrick Motorsports has hired Marshall Carlson as general manager, replacing Jeff Turner, one of 10 people killed Oct. 24 in the crash of a team plane on the way to a race at Martinsville, Va.

The 32-year-old Carlson most recently managed more than $200 million in real estate projects as vice president of corporate financial management with the Hendrick Automotive Group, a company owned by Rick Hendrick that operates more than 60 retail locations across the United States.

He will now oversee day-to-day operations for Hendrick Motorsports, which employs more than 500 people and fields five full-time teams.

"From working in a team shop to overseeing millions of dollars in new construction, he's always played a key role and will certainly continue to do so for a long time," Hendrick said.

Carlson is happy to be back in the racing end of Hendrick's business.

"It's been a tough few months for all of us, but we have a deep team of dedicated and talented people who have all stepped up to meet an extremely difficult challenge," he said.

Among the others killed in the plane crash were Hendrick's son, Ricky; his brother and team president, John; John's two daughters, and chief engine builder Randy Dorton.