Dale Earnhardt Jr Gangs up With HMS Legend, Dissecting Ty Gibbs’ Pain

Regardless of his ability to make an enemy out of a lot of drivers in the grid, Ty Gibbs has shown plenty of promise behind the wheel. Though he did not make it to the playoffs in his maiden Cup Series season, he raked in some pretty good finishes behind the wheel of his No. 54 Camry. Last week’s race at the Roval was one such prime example of his calibre. Finishing the race at P4, he was enjoying the moments of his best-ever Cup Series result.

Entering the gates of the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, the grandson of Joe Gibbs would have hoped to follow on similar lines. But unfortunately, what was waiting was one of his negative sides.

Hendrick Motorsport legends analyse the misfortune of the No. 54 driver

Over 200 laps into the 2023 South Point 400, Gibbs went into the wall thanks to a potential mistake from his crew. Racing hard on the restart he crashed against the wall. Once he released himself from the hold, it could be seen that his front wheel was loose and as a result, the tire cut. The wheel went bouncing down the track in the aftermath. Reacting to the flow of events from NBC’s broadcast box, HMS legends Dale Earnhardt Jr and Steve Letarte voiced their takes on the accident.

Getting his confirmation from the radio, Dale Jr said, “Looks like that car might… either got loose or blew a right front tire. There you go, blew a right front tire. Car just went straight into the fence.” With Dale Jr continuing to notice how the car appeared to run over something, Letarte and Jeff Burton concluded that the entire incident was the result of a right front wheel that wasn’t tight. As Burton said, “I think this whole thing has started because it wasn’t tight.”, Letarte can be heard responding, “How about this? It ended with the wheel coming off so at some point… and the centre’s still in the wheel is what I thought right? Cuz the outside looks good. The whole wheel comes off.”

As an after-effect of the mistakes from the driver and the crew, Joe Gibbs’ No. 54 team will have to make do without a crew member for a couple of weeks. But unfortunately for Ty Gibbs that wasn’t where his troubles on the day ended.

Watch Story: Rookie Driver Ty Gibbs in Hot Water After Pit Road Accident

Ty Gibbs fails to follow through on the Roval success at Las Vegas

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Coming off of his Cup Series career’s best finish, Ty Gibbs would have hoped to capitalise on the momentum that he’d built. Though it is unofficially known that he will be receiving this season’s Rookie of the Year award, he’d been hungry to prove himself further after the Roval result. Despite the P4, he said post-race, “We didn’t win, so I don’t think there’s a lot to be satisfied by. But we were really fast, I’ve got to get better on restarts, I really cost us some ground there.” 

Going to Vegas, there was a lot of question about whether he’d be able to repeat a similar performance. Intermediate tracks had not been the youngster’s best this year and Sunday followed through on that. After the cut tire with 50 laps to go, Gibbs once again found himself on the pit road as smoke blew out of his right front tire. But the grid escaped a caution this time since he’d made it to the pit. Finally managing to figure things out, the #54 crew helped him to a P33 finish. So far in the playoffs, Ty has seen 2 top-5 finishes. With a mere number of races to go by, he will be hoping to secure at least one victory lane visit this season.

Read More: Denny Hamlin Takes to Instagram to Publicly Bash Ty Gibbs’ Brutal Pitlane Error