Ty Gibbs recovered from a spin in Stage 2 to win the NASCAR Xfinity Series Alsco Uniforms 300 at Charlotte Motor Speedway and claim his second victory in only six series starts.
He led the final 20 laps in the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 54 Toyota and was the highest-finishing rookie in his Xfinity debut at the 1.5-mile track.
His surge to the front was not without difficulty. As Gibbs moved to pass Chase Briscoe who was leading the race, Gibbs inadvertently took the air off Briscoe’s car causing him to spin off Turn 2. Briscoe would have to settle for a 6th place finish.
Gibbs apologized on the team radio for the incident, saying, “I wasn’t trying to wreck him. I was trying to race him. That was never my intention.”
After the win, he took a moment to apologize again to Briscoe and his team.
“First off,” he said, “I just want to say sorry to the 99 and Chase and his crew. I didn’t hit him, but I definitely helped him out with him getting loose there, and it was not my intention. Already wrecked myself so, I just want to say sorry to them more importantly than this entire win.”
But nothing could take away from the excitement of claiming another victory for the 18-year-old who is running a part-time Xfinity Series schedule.
“It’s just awesome,” Gibbs said. “I’ll take it. This is a good day — we got one more (race) to go. So, I just want to say thank you all the fans out there and hell, yeah!”
Briscoe was disappointed, but said, “It felt like there at the end we just made the wrong adjustment and I was too tight. But truthfully, Ty was probably going to get me either way. After leading that many laps (60), it’s frustrating for sure.”
Austin Cindric placed second in his Team Penske No. 22 Ford, after finishing fourth in both Stage 1 and 2.
“Talking to everyone, it sounds like we were the most boring race car on the race track,” he said. “We took up residence in P4 for about the entire race. If that meant I had a good restart, a bad restart, a good pit stop, a bad pit stop, we were still P4. I felt like we weren’t good enough to make moves to get to the front, but we were good enough to maintain where we were. There’s definitely more for us to gain, but overall, we really executed well today. I can’t really complain.”
Harrison Burton finished third, followed by Brandon Brown and Tyler Reddick to round out the top five. Briscoe, Ty Dillon, Brandon Jones, Jeb Burton and Jeremy Clements finished sixth-10th, respectively.
Cindric leads the standings by 84 points over second-place Harrison Burton. AJ Almendinger (-108), Daniel Hemric (-108) Justin Allgaier (-133), Jeb Burton (-137), Justin Haley (-172), Jeremy Clements (-191), Noah Gragson (-197) and Myatt Snider (-211) round out the top-10 in the driver standings.
The Xfinity Series travels to Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course for its next race on Saturday, June 8, at 1 p.m. ET on FS1.
Official Results:
- (8) Ty Gibbs #, Toyota, 200.
- (4) Austin Cindric, Ford, 200.
- (13) Harrison Burton, Toyota, 200.
- (32) Brandon Brown, Chevrolet, 200.
- (16) Tyler Reddick(i), Chevrolet, 200.
- (2) Chase Briscoe(i), Ford, 200.
- (10) Ty Dillon, Chevrolet, 200.
- (14) Brandon Jones, Toyota, 200.
- (9) Jeb Burton, Chevrolet, 200.
- (6) Jeremy Clements, Chevrolet, 200.
- (26) Justin Allgaier, Chevrolet, 200.
- (1) Riley Herbst, Ford, 200.
- (28) Landon Cassill, Chevrolet, 200.
- (33) Alex Labbe, Chevrolet, 200.
- (22) Chad Finchum, Toyota, 200.
- (20) Ryan Vargas #, Chevrolet, 200.
- (25) Jade Buford #, Chevrolet, 200.
- (30) Jesse Little, Toyota, 200.
- (11) Justin Haley, Chevrolet, 200.
- (31) Cody Ware, Toyota, 200.
- (34) Josh Williams, Chevrolet, 199.
- (17) Jeffrey Earnhardt, Chevrolet, 199.
- (21) Stefan Parsons, Chevrolet, 199.
- (19) Michael Annett, Chevrolet, 199.
- (15) Brett Moffitt, Chevrolet, 198.
- (7) Myatt Snider, Chevrolet, 196.
- (23) Noah Gragson, Chevrolet, Accident, 187.
- (3) Daniel Hemric, Toyota, Accident, 186.
- (27) Tommy Joe Martins, Chevrolet, Accident, 186.
- (29) Colby Howard, Chevrolet, 184.
- (12) Ryan Sieg, Ford, Accident, 151.
- (18) Josh Berry #, Chevrolet, Accident, 150.
- (5) AJ Allmendinger, Chevrolet, Brakes, 128.
- (36) Timmy Hill(i), Toyota, Engine, 114.
- (24) Matt Mills, Chevrolet, Accident, 103.
- (35) Grant Enfinger(i), Toyota, Accident, 26.
