JOLIET, Ill. — Any successful head coach in the National Football League has to know how to inspire his team and step in when teammates are at odds.
Washington Redskins coach Joe Gibbs had to use those same qualities this weekend to take care of a festering situation that existed between two of his NASCAR Nextel Cup drivers — Tony Stewart and Denny Hamlin.
Gibbs, who owns the NASCAR team in addition to coaching the Redskins, made a surprise visit to Chicagoland Speedway on Saturday and talked to Stewart and Hamlin during the first 29 minutes of the final practice session that day.
It must have worked, as Stewart won the 30th race of his Cup career in Sunday’s USG Sheetrock 400 at Chicagoland Speedway. Although Hamlin finished 17th, the two drivers worked as a team on the track.
That’s something that didn’t happen in last Saturday night’s Pepsi 400 at Daytona Int’l Speedway, as Stewart ran into the back of Hamlin’s leading Chevrolet early in the race.
Afterwards, both drivers took verbal shots at each other through the media, and that verbal warfare continued earlier in the week.
That’s when Gibbs decided enough was enough and spoke to the two drivers earlier this weekend.
“It was a bigger drama with the media than it was in reality,” Stewart said. “The good thing about Joe is he knows how to organize people and where they need to be. This is going to keep us strong every week.”
Gibbs wasn’t at the race Sunday, but his son, J.D. Gibbs, is the president of the race team and spoke about his father’s ability to motivate.
“It was a tough week to have two great cars last week and then go through what we did,” J.D. Gibbs said. “Dad came back and wanted to talk, and I said, ‘Hey, you own this team. Do whatever you want.’
“If there’s a problem, deal with it quickly and move on. We dealt with it, now let’s move on.”
While Stewart was vocal in his displeasure about Hamlin last week,  Hamlin felt he had been unfairly singled out in the incident, but he has a greater understanding of what happened after talking to Stewart.
“Tony said this was something that was brewing over a period of time and there were things I did that agitated him,” Hamlin said of the meeting. “I wanted to know what they were. He told me. I tried to defend myself from those aspects.
“For the most part, I think we are stronger now than what we were. We know how to race each other from now on.”
Gibbs, who won three Super Bowls with the Redskins in the 1980s and 1990s, was able to draw on that fire and inspiration to his two drivers.
“I’ve never seen Coach fired up quite the way he was this week,” Hamlin said. “For him to come on Saturday the way he did, I knew it was serious. For us to miss half of practice, I knew it was very serious. He told us this was about being a team. He goes through the same thing with players that don't like each other.
“He said regardless of whether you like each other or not, you can hate each other outside the race track. When we’re here, we have to be teammates. I like Tony as a person. We have a working relationship, and that’s what we’ll continue to build on.”
During Sunday’s race, the two drivers worked together and helped each other out as much as possible.
After all, isn’t that the definition of “teamwork?”
“It was a good meeting,” Stewart said. “It was fairly short because Joe can be long winded sometimes. It’s great because Joe knows how to get people motivated. Denny and I talked, and even today we were pointing on the track today trying to find spots that would help us on the track together. We worked better today than we ever have as teammates.
“Denny is a young guy, and a half-hour meeting probably made us stronger.”