Ty Gibbs Marks NASCAR Pocono Anniversary with First Top 5

One year ago, less than 24 hours before the NASCAR Cup race at Pocono Raceway, 19-year-old Ty Gibbs was told he would make his debut in the sanctioning body’s premier series, substituting for an injured Kurt Busch. That day Gibbs finished 16th.

On the anniversary of Gibbs’ Cup debut, the 20-year-old driver placed fifth, the first top-five of his young Cup career.

“It’s been a long year,” Gibbs says when reflecting on his life since his Cup debut at Pocono. “It’s crazy where time takes you.”

Gibbs realizes he’s young and still has a great deal to learn, but he knew his experience at the 2.5-mile Pocono track would pay dividends.

“Coming back here (Pocono) is definitely nicer (than) coming to a new track and in a new car, scrambling for experience,” Gibbs says. “It’s been crazy and I’m very thankful for the experience that I’ve had. I definitely want to be a way better driver than I am.”

Stenhouse Turning It On Late

Daytona 500 winner Ricky Stenhouse Jr. attributes good track position in the second half of Sunday’s Highpoint.com 400 at Pocono Raceway to providing him with his second top-10 finish in the last three races.

“We didn’t have track position at the beginning,” Stenhouse said after his seventh-place finish. “We got it there in the middle stages of the race, but just wasn’t good enough to keep it. The guys made some really good adjustments, and we got better.

“The final Stage when we ran long, we were running good lap times when we got clean air. We took two tires and that gave us really good track position for when the cautions came out. It was just about timing those restarts there at the end. We messed up every restart there at the beginning, and then nailed everyone there at the end.”

After the race, NASCAR announced it was taking Stenhouse’s Chevrolet to the wind tunnel.