Ty Gibbs is currently 4th in the NASCAR Cup Series points table, just 139 points off his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Denny Hamlin in the lead. 

With eight races remaining in the regular season, there isn’t a shadow of a doubt that Ty Gibbs is finally coming good. As he improves on his early years in the Cup Series and is currently driving his best, the NASCAR broadcasters who were once hard critics of Ty Gibbs are all going back on their words. 

Steve Letarte and Kyle Petty spoke at length about Ty Gibbs on the Inside the Race podcast. While Letarte said he would have to go back on the hard criticism he had of Gibbs being immature, Kyle Petty was all praise for the 54 JGR Toyota driver. 

Petty said on the podcast, “He’s locked in at that level, and that focus where we’ve seen him in the past take a top three, a top five car and do something very immature- let’s just use it in this way-with 50-60 laps to go and take themselves out of a race. He’s not doing that anymore. That’s the old Ty Gibbs.”

According to Petty, “The new Ty Gibbs is going to take that car and put it in a position to have solid runs. When I look at what he’s done this year from a consistency level, when they’ve not had mechanical issues, when they’ve been in the game and running, he’s a top-five car week in and week out."

While Petty and Letarte praised Gibbs and rid him of the immature tag that was on him till last year, earlier, even his mother, Heather Gibbs, rid him of the "silver spoon" one.

On the Business of Motorsports podcast recently, Heather Gibbs came out and said Ty Gibbs only took up karting at 12. Since then, it took him 7 years to get into the Cup series. 

“He kind of came into it and just having that target on your back everywhere you go, ‘You’re a silver spoon’ or  ‘someone’s writing the check for you,’ and it’s funny because for us it was great for Ty just to be able to learn to have grit,” she said.

Ty Gibbs believes he is a genuine title contender

Right through the week between the Sonoma and Chicagoland races, everyone in NASCAR has been talking about the shift they have seen from Ty Gibbs in the 54 JGR Toyota. 

18 races into the season, Ty Gibbs is 4th in points with 11 top 10 finishes, of which 7 are top five finishes, including his career’s first Cup victory in Bristol. Gibbs picked up a massive 54 points in Sonoma, where he won both stages and finished 3rd behind SVG and his teammate Chase Briscoe. 

Heading into Chicagoland, Gibbs has surely had a look at the points table, and he too has expressed the potential he has. Speaking to the press in Chicagoland, NASCAR reported Gibbs saying:

“I think we’re easily a championship contender, honestly. I’m very happy about that and just got to stick to it and got to keep working hard. We’ve not really had any bad weekend; we just got wrecked out a bunch by some guys and myself, and then we still are in the position we’re in.”

While Gibbs also recognized the experience he’s been gaining and how different his season is looking compared to last year, he expressed his joy in working with good people, including his crew chief, Tyler Allen.

Gibbs has 139 points to make up with 8 races to go. Denny Hamlin pulled off a similar run when he knocked off an over 120-point deficit to Tyler Reddick in around 6 races. 

Do you think Ty Gibbs is in a place to take the championship lead by the end of the regular season? Let us know. 

You can read more on the Daytona Racing Digest!

Written by

Debrup Chaudhuri

Edited by

Suyashdeep Sason