Ty Gibbs Grabs the Victory at Las Vegas

Photo by Dylan Buell/Getty Images for NASCAR

NASCAR

Gibbs Steals Vegas Win Away From Gragson in Closing Laps

LAS VEGAS, Nev. – A marathon afternoon for the Xfinity Series ends with a familiar face in victory lane. After getting the lead from Noah Gragson on the last restart, Ty Gibbs drove off to his fifth win in only his 21st start. This win trumps any from last year though, as the 19-year-old is now locked into the Playoffs.

Stage 1 Saw it All

The opening 45 laps from Las Vegas were truly unique. In this short span of time, we saw a rivalry born, payback, and snow in the desert. 

After being one of 16 cars sent to the rear for the start, Ty Gibbs was marching forward early. However, the No. 54 Toyota would stumble when he reached Ryan Sieg. Contact from the 54 sent Sieg’s No. 39 around on lap 15. Sieg was none too happy at how Gibbs raced him, and pledged to pay him back later that day. This caution would lead to a 42-minute red flag delay for a brief snow flurry at the track, only making things weirder.

Once racing resumed, Sieg’s injured car failed to meet minimum speed. The 39 was promptly black-flagged, and tried to pay back Gibbs. However, Sieg ended up with even more damage from this retaliation. Sieg tried forcing Gibbs into the outside wall, but the 54 escaped with no harm. However, Sieg did collect the innocent bystanders of Creed and Moffitt.

Aside from the Gibbs-Sieg qualms, the Stages remained relatively clean. Hometown driver Noah Gragson swept both Stages, going for his first Vegas win. The 9 appeared to be the class of the field out front, but the start of the final Stage set him back.

A poor restart for Stage 3 and a supposed wheel coming apart set Gragson off-cycle from the leaders. While he remained in second, he had to also save fuel. Gragson’s fuel concerns were only waived with 27 laps left, when a caution came out. The 9 fought off the field on two restarts, only for one final caution to fly with 10 to go. It was on this final restart where Ty Gibbs got ahead of Gragson for good, leading the final six laps en route to the win.

Despite stealing the win in clutch fashion, Gibbs was very apologetic, self-deprecating, and thankful in his celebration.

“First of all I want to say all glory to my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,” Gibbs said. “I want to say thank you to Him. Second off, I want to apologize to the 39 for the contact I made. It wasn’t my best decision, and I’m sorry to their whole group. Ryan’s family works so hard, and I want to apologize to them.

“I want to say thank you to Justin Allgaier for my push too, that helped me out a lot. I had a lot of fun racing with the JR cars, so hopefully we can keep it going, and go win some more races. Want to also say thank you to Monster Energy, Toyota, my GR Supra was so fast, this is awesome! Let’s go!”

Top 10 finishers from Las Vegas were Gibbs, Gragson, Daniel Hemric, Josh Berry, Justin Allgaier, Landon Cassill, Sheldon Creed, Brett Moffitt, AJ Allmendinger, and Brandon Jones.

The Xfinity Series will be back in action next Saturday from Phoenix Raceway. The United Rentals 200 will go green at 4:30 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Channel 90.

Written by Peter Stratta

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Photo Credit to Dylan Buell/Getty Images for NASCAR