Ty Gibbs grabs Xfinity win at Charlotte

credit: Debbie Ross for Skirts and Scuffs

Ty Gibbs led the final 20 laps of the Alsco Uniforms 300 Saturday afternoon on the way to his second victory in just six starts in the Xfinity Series. The 18-year-old grandson of team owner Coach Joe Gibbs recovered from an early spin to take the checkers in his Charlotte Motor Speedway series debut.

“I was definitely frustrated with myself. I completely wrecked myself, but didn’t really make myself look good today and made some mistakes. Definitely still learning how the air works and I’ll take full responsibility for all the mistakes I made.” Gibbs said. “Overall, we ended up in victory lane.” 

Gibbs went on to dominate the ARCA General Tire 150. Starting from the pole, he led all the laps and picked up his fourth win in six races, cutting Corey Heim’s points lead to 10 in that series. 

credit: Debbie Ross for Skirts and Scuffs

In second place by .437 seconds, Austin Cindric scored his ninth top-five finish in twelve starts. “Talking to everyone it sounds like we were the most boring race car on the racetrack,” he stated. “We took up residency with P4 throughout the entire race. If that meant I had a good restart, or if that meant I had a bad restart. If that meant I had a good pit stop or a bad pit stop, we always seemed to be fourth. I don’t feel like we were good enough to really make moves to get to the front, but we were good enough to maintain where we were, so definitely some more for us to gain, but, overall, a really well executed day. I can’t really complain.” 

Harrison Burton led 42 laps, but wasn’t able to catch Gibbs in the end. He finished third, which left him dissatisfied despite being a solid second behind Cindric in the points standings. “We got a lot better throughout the weekend. In practice we were kind of in the same spot, about ninth. We got our DEX Imaging Supra faster for the race. Gosh, when you’re close to wins and don’t win, it’s so frustrating.” Burton said. “ I’m just frustrated because I feel like we’ve run pretty well this year and just haven’t had the wins to show for us. I expect to win a lot of races this year and I think we will. It’s frustrating when it doesn’t happen right now. We’ll keep plugging away at it and getting better. I’ll look at the video to see what I could have done different and go from there.”

In fourth place, Brandon Brown earned his second top-five finish of the season, the third of his Xfinity career, while Tyler Reddick brought Jordan Anderson’s Bommarito Auto Group No. 31 home in fifth in his second start for the young team owner. 

credit: Debbie Ross for Skirts and Scuffs

Daniel Hemric led the most laps with 105, but a multi-car crash on Lap 188 ended his day. A total of 51 of the race’s 200 laps ran under the yellow flag with only 10 of those laps from competition or stage-ending cautions. 

Also of note, Ryan Vargas crossed the finish line 16th, his third-best finish in his 23 Xfinity starts, and his best of the season. Tommy Joe Martins avoided several incidents throughout the race and was headed for a good finish with the Super Mega Show No. 44 but got caught up in the Lap 188 melee and wound up 29th. 

Cindric takes away an 84-point lead over Burton, with AJ Allmendinger, Hemric, and Justin Allgaier rounding out the top five in the series standings. 

The next stop for the Xifnity series: Saturday, June 5, the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in Lexington, Ohio, for the  B&L Transport 170, airing at 1:00 PM EDT on FS1.