Chris Gayle was sure Ty Gibbs was going to crash.
Gayle, a longtime crew chief at Joe Gibbs Racing, watched from atop the pit box during September’s NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway as his young driver got in the type of trouble that would end many racers’ days.
“He got loose up top on the race track, running up there for the first time and basically had a huge correction,” Gayle said. “You’re able to watch some of this live and then see he’s got the wheels cranked a hundred and eighty with the steering wheel to the point that smoke was coming off the front tires, and he managed to save it all without wrecking it.”
Gibbs finished 11th in his No. 54 Toyota Supra, while Gayle filed away the memory as an example of the driver’s phenomenal car control.
That moment was just one highlight of many in a 2021 season that served as a breakout for the 19-year-old Gibbs.
While the high-powered Joe Gibbs Racing team undoubtedly prepares race-winning cars for each event, few expected Gibbs, the grandson of team owner and NFL Hall of Fame coach Joe Gibbs, to be this good, this soon.
Ty Gibbs won six races in the 2020 ARCA Menards Series while racing a limited schedule and claimed the 2021 series championship on the strength of 10 victories in his No. 18 Toyota Camry.
He also won in his first Xfinity Series start on the Daytona road course in February, joining an elite group as he became just the sixth driver to achieve a win in their first start in the series. He won again at Charlotte Motor Speedway in the spring, at Watkins Glen (N.Y.) Int’l over the summer and at Kansas Speedway in the fall.
In 18 starts this year, he finished in the top five nine times, while scoring 10 top-10 results. That was good enough to earn him rookie-of-the-year honors, an award he won in ARCA as well.
Although he entered the ARCA season as a championship favorite and made good on those expectations, his immediate success in the Xfinity Series ranks has perhaps turned the most heads.
But despite a year during which he become a favorite to win more often than not, the Charlotte native has yet to feel as though he’s had a moment where he’s truly “made it.”
“That’s one thing I’ve never thought about,” Gibbs said before the Xfinity Series event at the Charlotte Motor Speedway ROVAL. “Even if I was racing in Formula 1 or in the Cup Series tomorrow, I’d feel the same. I just do my same routine and just try to do the best I can. If I didn’t do good or if I’ve got to work on something, I’ll work on it.”
His work ethic and aggressive competitive spirit (which he believes is partly a product of being from a family made up mostly of boys) is seen by team members as a primary reason for many of his achievements.
“I think the biggest thing that I see is just the desire and the fearlessness,” Gayle said. “Some of it is he just refuses to follow guys and refuses to be in situations where he doesn’t attempt to go for it.”
In fact, Gayle says Gibbs reminds him of Kyle Busch when he made the move to the team in 2008. Gayle believes in the adage that it’s easier to slow a driver down than speed him up, and now has his sights set on combining Gibbs’ raw talent with experience that will further refine his race craft as he moves up the ranks.
Gibbs’ father, Coy, turned in several respectable seasons as a driver, primarily in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series and Xfinity Series. Meanwhile, other family members have followed the stick-and-ball sport route.
For Ty Gibbs though, racing was always what he wanted to do and he looks primed to have a long career on the driving side of the sport.
“I just feel like I had a connection with racing more than I did with anything,” he said. “I raced bicycles growing up, so I really liked the racing aspect. I just liked doing it myself. I liked the feel of it and it’s really fun to me, and I really like working on it.”
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