The sponsor that signed before there was a team

In 1991, Joe Gibbs was a Super Bowl-winning football coach who wanted to start a NASCAR team. What he didn't have was nearly everything a NASCAR team needs. When he sat down with the Miller brothers at Interstate Batteries in Dallas, there was no race shop, no cars, no employees and no driver.

He got to that office through a referral. By Norm Miller's account, Gibbs asked Max Helton, then president of Motor Racing Outreach, for the names of good, honorable people to approach. Helton had heard of the Millers. Interstate already knew racing: it had backed Stanley Smith in the All-American Series and in four Winston Cup races, and Gibbs had seen that car. Then Gibbs picked up the phone and called Norm Miller himself.

Interstate committed as the founding sponsor of a team that did not exist yet.

A Daytona 500 in year two

Joe Gibbs Racing ran its first race in February 1992 with fewer than 20 employees: the No. 18 Interstate Batteries car, Dale Jarrett driving, Jimmy Makar as crew chief. They scored eight top-10s that season, including a second place at Bristol.

On February 14, 1993, Jarrett passed Dale Earnhardt on the last lap to win the Daytona 500. Earnhardt had led 107 of the 200 laps. It was the first Cup Series win for the team and for its sponsor, and it came at the biggest race of the year.

For Interstate, the win was about more than a trophy. In 1992 the company sold through roughly 120,000 dealers: service stations, repair garages and car dealers. What it lacked was a national name. Miller has said the Daytona win helped Interstate land national accounts, the big multi-location customers a regional brand struggles to reach.

1. 1991Interstate commits as founding sponsor of Joe Gibbs Racing.
2. 1992First race. No. 18 Interstate car, Dale Jarrett, fewer than 20 employees.
3. 1993Jarrett wins the Daytona 500. First Cup win for team and sponsor.
4. 1995Bobby Labonte wins the team's first pole, at Martinsville, in the Interstate car.
5. 2000Labonte wins the Cup championship, JGR's first, with Interstate as primary sponsor.
6. 2008Kyle Busch joins the No. 18. Interstate moves to about six primary races a year.
7. 2013Busch wins at Texas: Interstate's first win at its home-state track.
8. 2019Renewal takes the deal past 30 years. 32 Cup wins with Interstate as primary so far.
9. 2023"Team Interstate": 13 races spread across all four JGR Cup cars.
10. 2025Another multi-year extension, called the most tenured team partnership in NASCAR.
11. 2026Still on the car: Christopher Bell's No. 20 in JGR's 35th season.

It got smaller, and that's why it lasted

The easy version of this story is loyalty. The more useful version is flexibility. Interstate started as a full-season primary sponsor. From 2008 it typically ran about six primary races a year. In 2023 it spread 13 races across four different JGR cars. In 2025 it was four races on Bell's car and one on Ty Gibbs's.

Each time, the program changed shape to fit what Interstate needed from it that year, instead of forcing a yes-or-no on the whole thing. Miller called that flexibility "one of the great strengths" of the relationship.

Neither side ever pretended it was charity. Miller said in 2023 that Interstate always finds new ways to use its JGR and NASCAR assets to open new accounts and sell more batteries. Gibbs, for his part, has said a partnership first has to work for the business, and that a team has to prove value to its partners.

Shared values, and a second generation

Business alone doesn't explain 35 years. At their first meeting, Miller told Gibbs he only wanted to do things where he could "lift up Christ," and Gibbs agreed. The families grew close, and the relationship passed to the next generation on both sides: J.D. Gibbs worked alongside Scott Miller, and later Coy Gibbs worked with Interstate's Lain Hancock.