- Ty Gibbs has a pair of career-best, third-place finishes this season and currently is fourth in the NASCAR Cup Series standings.
- The 21-year-old grandson of NASCAR and Pro Football Hall of Famer Joe Gibbs visits Texas Motor Speedway on Sunday, April 14, for the Autotrader EchoPark Automotive 400.
FORT WORTH, Texas (April 5, 2024) – The victories came fast and furious for Ty Gibbs in the NASCAR Xfinity Series and ARCA Menards Series, but the 21-year-old Joe Gibbs Racing driver still finds himself chasing his first in the Cup Series after 58 career starts.
Gibbs’ patience, however, may not be tested much longer as 2022 Xfinity Series and ’21 ARCA Menards champion is in the midst of a breakout campaign in the Cup Series.
Through the first seven races of the season, the grandson of NASCAR and Pro Football Hall of Famer Joe Gibbs is fourth in the Cup Series standings and has established a new career-best finish of third on two occasions (Phoenix and Circuit of The Americas). He also shares the series lead for top-five finishes (3) and top-10 efforts (5).
To put this season into better perspective would be a comparison to his previous 51 Cup races, which consisted of a partial 15-race season in 2022 and full 36-race schedule last year in which he was named the series’ rookie of the year.
Gibbs is one shy of equaling his top-five finishes during that period (4), has led more laps (195-114), established his highest ranking in the Cup standings (second following COTA) and, most importantly, has shown the consistency to excel in the Cup Series. His average starting position is 11.3 and finishing position at 9.0, which rank among the best in the series.
Gibbs (No. 54 Monster Energy Toyota) will look to improve on those statistics Sunday at Martinsville Speedway and then at Texas Motor Speedway on Sunday, April 14, for the Autotrader EchoPark Automotive 400 (2:30 p.m. CT, TV: FS1, Radio: PRN, SiriusXM, Lone Star 92.5 FM locally).
“It’s been great,” Gibbs said about the quick start to the season. “It’s just been really good. My team has been doing a really good job. We are working really well together. I’ve been having a lot of fun racing in the Cup Series. It’s really cool.”
Gibbs, who has a combined 30 wins between ARCA (18) and the Xfinity Series (12), showed flashes during his rookie Cup season with 10 top-10 finishes, including a then-career-best fourth at the Charlotte ROVAL. On the flip side, he also posted seven finishes of 31st or worse.
“We couldn’t have predicted quite this level of success,” said Chris Gayle, Gibbs’ crew chief, recently on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. “We wanted to get the consistency up, and we knew our end of the season (performance) … forecast a little bit better hope for the start of this year.
“We were definitely running better and had speed that was better weekly, but to come out at the start of this year and be leading in all those categories and be second in points (after COTA), I don’t think we thought we’d be there.”
The continuity of Gaye’s veteran experience paired with the young, aggressive nature of Gibbs also is beginning to pay off.
“It’s really great. … He has been my crew chief since 2021. He’s been working with me for a minute,” Gibbs said. “I feel like we have a good connection, also my engineer – Kyle Abrahims – he’s also been with me and Chris since 2021. We’ve all been working really good together and we are going to keep hammering down.”
Joe Gibbs Racing as a whole has been hammering down as well with all four drivers among the top six in the Cup points standings. The quartet also has combined for three wins and 10 top-five performances. Martin Truex Jr. is first in the standings, Denny Hamlin third, Gibbs fourth and Christopher Bell sixth. Hamlin is coming off his second win of the season this past weekend at Richmond and Bell collected the other at Phoenix.
“First of all, we need to give all of the thanks to Joe Gibbs Racing aero department, alongside with Toyota,” Gibbs said. “The new Toyota Camry XSE body – they’ve just done a great job with it. They’ve worked really hard on it, so it is great for all of them.
“Our team is great, and I have great teammates – they all have different characteristics, which is really cool, and I think that is really helpful with a team. We all come from pretty different backgrounds, so it’s a good atmosphere there and in our meetings on Monday, I can tell we all want it. All of the great feedback is just going to help us get better and better.”
Tickets are on sale now for the 2024 Autotrader EchoPark Automotive 400 NASCAR tripleheader weekend April 12-14. The race weekend begins April 12 with the NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series SpeedyCash.com 250 (7:30 p.m. CT on FS1, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Channel 90), continues with the April 13 NASCAR Xfinity Series Andy’s Frozen Custard 300 (12:30 p.m. CT on FS1, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Channel 90) and concludes with the April 14 NASCAR Cup Series Autotrader EchoPark Automotive 400 (2:30 p.m. CT on FS1, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Channel 90 and Lone Star 92.5 – local).
Tickets are on sale now at www.texasmotorspeedway.com.
Texas Motor Speedway’s major event season also includes the POWRi Wildcard Showdown (April 5-6), High Limit Sprint Car Series (April 13), Fuel Fest (April 20), the Goodguys Rod & Custom/American Flat Track/Pate Swap Meet tripleheader weekend (April 25-28), C-10 Nationals (May 10-12), LS Fest (May 18), Bandas y Trocas (May 25), Solar Car Challenge (July 11-17), SuperMotocross World Championship Playoff 2 (Sept. 14), Goodguys Rod & Custom (Sept. 27-29), American Sprint Car Series (Oct. 4-5), the High Limit Sprint Car Series inaugural season finale (Oct. 11-12) and the Gordy’s Hwy 30 Fest Texas (Oct. 17-20).
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