Getty Ty Gibbs before race at Charlotte.
Ty Gibbs has developed a reputation in his young career for getting heated during races. It happened again at Sonoma in the June 8 NASCAR Xfinity Series race when the Joe Gibbs Racing driver was involved in a massive multi-car pileup. Instead of stopping and letting all the cars clear, the 21-year-old hit the gas and started doing donuts, which produced an even bigger cloud of dirt in the air and a collision with his teammate Chandler Smith.
Up in the Fox broadcast booth, Joey Logano and Daniel Suarez called out the driver for his actions.
@joeylogano called out @TyGibbs for his actions after the Joe Gibbs Racing driver did donuts in the middle of a massive crash scene at Sonoma.
“Look at it, everyone’s stopped,” Logano pointed out as those involved and those behind the incident came to a stop.
“It’s a parking lot right there,” Suarez noted before Gibbs started spinning in his car. “The 19 was doing some donuts.”
“The 19 is really having a fit there,” the Team Penske driver said.
“He’s really pissed,” the Trackhouse Racing driver agreed.
Ty Gibbs Shares Anger Over Team Radio
While it was evident by Gibbs’ actions that he was not pleased with the situation, he made it clear what he thought about it all and who he blamed over his team radio.
“Yeah, we’re [expletive] done,” Gibbs frustratingly admitted.
“Yeah, I see it. Total dust cloud here. I can’t see you at all,” one of his spotters mentioned, not realizing that his driver was the main cause of the visibility issues.
“Taking it to the house,” the driver told his crew. “I got spun and the 9 just [expletive] railed me in the ass.”
“Got one more coming to your right here,” his spotter informed him as the trailing cars tried to get around his wounded vehicle. “Just hug that left side for me.”
“That’s what happens when you get back with the [expletive] squirrels,” Gibbs said. “You get hit in the [expletive].”
Ty Gibbs Had a Rough Weekend at Sonoma
Heading into Sonoma, Gibbs was on a hot streak at road courses, finishing inside the top 5 in his last three Cup Series races, dating back to last year at Watkins Glen. Unfortunately, that dust cloud-producing pileup and finishing 35th in the Xfinity Series race carried over into the June 9 main event.
Gibbs started the Cup race 10th and made it just 17 laps around the 1.99-mile circuit before he committed a massive mistake, and something he confidently suggested wouldn’t happen less than 24 hours before in his Xfinity post-race interview, when he hit the newly-installed concrete wall in Turn 11, resulting in terminal damage to his No. 54 car.
Saturday was bad. Sunday was worse. He finished two spots lower in 37th.
JGR Had an Overall Weekend to Forget
Gibbs, almost unbelievably after the successful start of the season for the four-car organization, wasn’t even the worst finishing car from JGR. That title belonged to, surprisingly enough, Denny Hamlin, who suffered an engine failure on Lap 2 with a large thick cloud of white smoke billowing out from the pipes of the No. 11.
Martin Truex Jr. was undeniably the best car for JGR on the day, starting 21st, dropping to 37th after getting spun in one of the many early incidents, moving up to 19th at the end of Stage 1, and then surging forward to finish third in Stage 2.
In that final stage, the 2017 Cup champ held steady running second behind Chris Beuscher until the final pit cycle began on Lap 69. When the field cycled through, including Kyle Larson after crew chief Cliff Daniels made what turned out to be the winning call to pit 13 laps later than everyone else, Truex slotted back in second behind the RFK No. 17 car.
Once the Hendrick Motorsports pilot blended back into the field, he started ninth and more than 12 seconds back. However, with his fresher tires, the 2021 Cup champion sliced and diced his way through the competition, and it became quite evident he was going to catch the two leaders. The only question that remained was could he pass them?
With nine laps to go, Larson passed Truex, who had already passed Buescher, and cruised to his third win of the season. For Truex, unfortunately, he didn’t even finish second. To add insult to injury, his car ran out of gas on the final lap similar to Ryan Blaney the week before at St. Louis.
He managed to re-fire the No. 19 numerous times to the cheers of the crowd, eventually limping it across the finish line. Minutes after being in the lead, the fuel miscalculation proved costly and Truex finished 27th.
It was an ugly end to an overall ugly weekend for the organization.