TY GIBBS WINS IN HIS XFINITY SERIES DEBUT AT DAYTONA
Ty Gibbs led 14 laps en-route to his first career victory
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (February 20, 2021) – Four Toyota Supras finished in the top-six in the NASCAR Xfinity Series (NXS) race at Daytona International Speedway Road Course. The trio was led by Ty Gibbs who captured his first-career Xfinity Series victory.
Toyota Racing Post-Race Recap
NASCAR Xfinity Series
Daytona International Speedway Road Course
Race 2 of 33 – 187.7 miles, 52 laps
TOYOTA FINISHING POSITIONS
1st, TY GIBBS
2nd, Austin Cindric*
3rd, DANIEL HEMRIC
4th, BRANDON JONES
5th, Jeb Burton*
6th, HARRISON BURTON
18th, KRIS WRIGHT
19th, MATT MILLS
29th, STEPHEN LEICHT
38th, DAVID STARR
*non-Toyota driver
TOYOTA QUOTES
TY GIBBS, No. 54 Monster Energy Toyota Supra, Joe Gibbs Racing
Finishing Position: 1st
How do you describe your first NASCAR Xfinity Series victory?
“You know, I can’t thank everybody right now. This is like a dream come true to me. This is awesome, I can’t do burnouts, that’s one thing I cannot do at all. I just can’t thank everybody, this is just a dream come true to me. I really didn’t think I had it there. Kind of fought back and we won. Thank you to Monster Energy and everybody, I don’t even know what’s going on.”
What do you have to say to your family?
“The family is everything to me, they do so much for me. I just can’t thank them enough, this is just amazing; this is a dream come true. It’s all the man above, I’m sorry I’m a wreck I didn’t think this was going to happen at all. This is awesome, I can’t thank everybody enough watching and last week I had a terrible interview. I want to apologize for everybody, I just can’t thank everybody enough. This is just amazing.”
How do you capture this emotion in this moment?
“I don’t even know how to feel. This is really hard for me to explain. After my uncle passed away, it’s been hard for me. It’s just a dream come true. I’m just rambling. I’m excited. Mixed emotions for sure. This is just awesome.”
Can you talk about that last restart?
“I don’t even know how I kept going. It was the man above. He’s done everything for me. He put me in this great family and in this great situation in life. I feel like I had to earn a lot of respect tonight, and I don’t think I did a too good of a job. I hit the grass and kept on rolling. I have no words. I just won at Daytona.”
Last week, you weren’t too happy after the ARCA race here. Have your thoughts changed about Daytona?
“I just want to say sorry to everyone for that. That was just a complete disgrace by me. I was just mad and rambling and just saying excuses, and I have no excuses for this. I made mistakes all night, and I don’t know how I still won. This is just amazing.”
DANIEL HEMRIC, No. 18 Poppy Bank Toyota Supra, Joe Gibbs Racing
Finishing Position: 3rd
Can you describe those last few laps?
“You don’t want to be on the top – I know that. I was the fortunate guy. I stared 13th in the first green-white-checkered. We were in fourth or fifth coming off of turn two. I thought we were going to line-up in fifth on the last one, and something happened with the lineup and we got shuffled to sixth before we got to the green. It was very late notice. You have two rows of old tires in front of us. The guys in front of you spin the tires. I ducked right, and put myself into three-wide coming into turn one. Probably a piss poor move on my part, honestly. I’m proud of these guys. Everyone at Joe Gibbs Racing, TRD, everyone at Toyota that supports us, everyone at Poppy Bank. Man, I want that one decision back. We will lick our wounds and carry on.”
BRANDON JONES, No. 19 Menards/Barracuda Pumps Toyota Supra, Joe Gibbs Racing
Finishing Position: 4th
Solid top-five for you today, Brandon, after some damage. How was your race overall?
“I thought we had a really solid Supra all day long. I thought that thoughout the day we had consistent speed to pretty much run top three throughout the day. I don’t think we had the car to completely dominate the race, but definitely one that would run up front throughout the race. What led to our damage was, I felt like coming off of pit road, we were on cold tires. As soon as we came off of pit road, I was looking at my tac, I popped my head up and all that I hear is my spotter Stevie (Reeves) saying check-up, check-up. I think it was a combination of cold tires sliding across the racetrack, I was trying to get it out of first gear so it would stop bucking me into the wreck. We came down pit road after that and really did a good job of making those repairs that we needed. Actually, I think we got the car back pretty much to what it was when we started the race. We were really, really close on our balance, so that was a really good job by those guys to get that back. Then to hold everybody off at the end on four old tires, that was a testament to the team that we are bringing to the table to compete this year for a championship. We were able to rally back from the tires and the damage and still have a top-five out of that. It was a solid day for us, and I think two top-fives on that roaad course is a really good improvement.”
HARRISON BURTON, No. 20 DEX Imaging Toyota Supra, Joe Gibbs Racing
Finishing Position: 6th
How was your race today?
“The way the cards fell at the end, just a chaotic end to these races. Basically, whoever is lucky enough not to get wiped out or a hole opens up or whatever it may be, you just have to try to find holes. Those last restarts kind of hurt us, that’s something we can go back and watch and get better at. I felt like we had good speed all day in our DEX Imaging Supra, just not quite enough to be dominant, but close, so that was a good set-up. It’s little frustrating, but good overall.”
