A year ago, Joe Gibbs Racing was still three months away from officially making the switch in manufacturers from Chevrolet to Toyota.

Two weeks before that change was made public this past Sept. 5, the organization announced that it was hiring driver Kyle Busch -- who basically was jettisoned at Hendrick Motorsports in favor of the more popular, but quite possibly not as talented, Dale Earnhardt Jr.

So it's safe to say that less than a year ago, JGR's immediate future seemed cloudy. Would the transition be smooth to Toyotas from Chevys, which it had fielded for 16 years? Or would it be a monumental struggle at first? And what about young, brash Mr. Busch? How would he fit in on a team that already had one seemingly rising (and somewhat temperamental in his own right) star in Denny Hamlin, not to mention the man who once put the "T" in temperamental, Tony Stewart?

As the 2008 season began to unfold, it quickly became obvious that the Toyota deal was going to work out fine -- as was the acquisition of Busch. Then another nagging question surfaced when Stewart let it be known that he might look to drive elsewhere when his current contract expires at the end of 2009.

That led to more questions about the future of JGR, but Busch's rampage of wins, as well as the success of Hamlin and Stewart in the Nationwide Series, has largely served to quiet it all. Busch's latest Sprint Cup victory, his series-high fourth of the season, came Sunday at Dover and left the statement Busch had made a few weeks earlier at Lowe's Motor Speedway lingering in the Delaware air.

"Just because you don't like me," Kyle had said then, "don't hate on my talent."

Seen it all

Suddenly the future of JGR has never shone brighter. Busch is winning races in everything he steps into, even when it's not a JGR-prepared machine in the Craftsman Truck Series or at the Nationwide level (when he drives occasionally for someone else, in addition to JGR). He's leading the Sprint Cup Series in points, and all three of the JGR drivers are inside the top 12 in the standings -- which means all three remain solidly in the hunt for a championship this season. And waiting in the bullpen is Joey Logano, who made his impressive Nationwide Series debut at Dover.

Busch is as hot as any driver Jimmy Makar has ever seen -- and Makar, JGR's senior vice president of racing operations, has been around the sport for more than 30 years. Makar hit on a key point when he recently was asked about Busch, pointing out that there is much more to the young man than first meets often critical eyes.

"You see guys get hot. But if you've watched Kyle over the last few years, he's the real deal. He's not just hot," Makar said.

So much of being "the real deal" these days is mental, Makar added. And that aspect of Busch's game is what has impressed him the most this season.

"Obviously right now he's hotter than normal, but the kid's got incredible car control, incredible talent on the racetrack. Since he's come to drive for us, the thing I've learned about him that I had never really thought about -- because I just thought he had a lot of guts, took the car to the edge, and just drove hard -- is how much he thinks," said Makar, who is in charge of operations for JGR's three Cup teams, as well as overseeing its Nationwide and driver development programs. "If you get him in the car and get him working in practice, what you don't realize is how much he thinks, how much of the mental side of him is there that I never realized was there before.

"I thought he was a good, hard driver. But he's very sharp when it comes to what the car is doing, what it needs, how to think about how the car is going to do later on. There is a lot up top there. He's not just a pedal-to-the-metal kind of driver; there is a lot of thinking going on behind him."

“

I see big things coming from him; I don't see him stumbling.

”

JIMMY MAKAR, on Joey Logano

Back to the future

That's what has the boys at JGR so excited about Logano, who just turned 18 years old. Makar said he sees Logano having the same kind of on-the-track mental makeup as young Kyle -- perhaps without all the off-the-track bells and whistles that make Busch the driver so many love to hate.

"We see a lot of potential there, obviously. Everything we've asked him to do, every series he's gotten involved in, he's been able to succeed in. That's good to see," Makar said of Logano. "He's shown us all the things in a driver that you need to have to make it at this [Cup] level. So I've been really impressed with him. He's much more mature than his years.

"And again, the kid just has a lot of feel for the racecar. He can go out and get it to the edge relatively easily, and then come back and give you a lot of feedback about the racecar. And that's important to the crews today, to be able to work on the car. You really need to be able to know what's happening out there to be able to work on 'em, and Joey's got that in him, too. He doesn't ever seem to get riled or nervous, and then he comes back and talks matter-of-factly about the car. That tells me he's real comfortable in the car. So I'm looking for great things out of him."

Having said all that, Makar allowed that as talented as Logano obviously is, the young star in waiting still needs to gain more experience before he'll be ready to unleash his full potential on the Sprint Cup Series.

"Obviously he still has a long way to go before he makes it at this level, but I'm real curious to see how he does going forward in the Nationwide Series. I see big things coming from him; I don't see him stumbling," Makar said. "I think he's going to make it at this level and be successful at this level. It's neat to sort of have that sitting there as a potential candidate for a fourth car or whatever we may need to have."

It sure is, if you're looking at it from JGR's perspective. If you're looking at it from anyone else's, it not really all that neat so much as it's just plain intimidating.

For an organization that has faced more than its share of hard questions in the past eight months, Joe Gibbs Racing appears to have in place the guys with the brains to come up with all the right answers.

The opinions expressed are solely of the writer.