Why Joe Gibbs Racing Is Taking the Slow Road With NASCAR Cup Hopeful Ty Gibbs

• Ty Gibbs is the son of ex-Stanford football player Coy Gibbs and the grandson of NFL Hall of Fame coach Joe Gibbs.

• While the 19-year-old Gibbs is already an eight-time winner in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, there's no rush to move him to the Cup Series.

• His victories this year have come at Las Vegas, Atlanta (scene of this weekend’s Saturday afternoon race), Richmond and Road America.

When your grandfather is a multi-time championship NASCAR Hall of Fame team owner and you’re built more for racing than football, how early in life do you know what you wanted to do?

Ty Gibbs has heard that question countless times, and the answer and his ambitions have never changed: “Probably around the age of 6,” he says to the first question. And as for his long-range goals: “To win multiple championships in different levels of competition and ultimately become a NASCAR Cup Series champion … and win a lot of races along the way.”

NASCAR-watchers have no doubt the son of ex-Stanford football player Coy Gibbs and the grandson of NFL Hall of Fame coach Joe Gibbs has the support team, the equipment, the name recognition, and the drive to become a force in stock car racing. Once he gets to Cup, few would bet against him eventually becoming a champion.

But he apparently won’t get that opportunity for at least another year or so. According to Joe Gibbs Racing president Dave Alpern, the plan is to leave Gibbs in the second-level Xfinity Series the rest of this season and likely all of 2023 as well. (The kid is 19, looks like he’s about 12, and races like a 20-year veteran).

“Ty has been really, really good this year,” Alpern said during a Thursday press call. “We were all excited to watch him race against” (and beat) “a champion” (Kyle Larson at Road America) “last week. There’s a lot of interest in him because he’s a great driver and a great kid. For a lot of reasons, this has been a fun year.”

It’s debatable whether current JGR drivers Martin Truex Jr., Kyle Busch, Denny Hamlin, and Christopher Bell will be around by 2024, but what’s not debatable is Gibbs’s path to the Cup Series. His grandfather isn’t likely to let another team poach away his lead Xfinity driver. (Coach Joe has made some personnel blunders, so this isn’t going to be another of them).

“We don’t want to push Ty too fast,” Alpern said. “We have no specific plans beyond this year in reference to a Cup race. We’re going to play out the rest of the season and see if he can win or compete for the Xfinity championship. That’s our ‘Plan A’ for right now.”

Gibbs has built a truly remarkable resume in four years of NASCAR and ARCA racing. As an Xfinity rookie last year, he won on the Daytona Beach infield road course, then at Charlotte, Watkins Glen, and Kansas. His victories this year have come at Las Vegas, Atlanta (scene of this weekend’s Saturday afternoon race), Richmond, and last weekend, when he beat Larson with a late-pass at Road America. All told, he’s 8-of-34 in his two-year Xfinity career.

He’s won 18 ARCA Menard races, plus five ARCA East races and three ARCA West. He was last year’s ARCA Menard champion based on 10 victories in 20 starts, plus 19 total top-5 finishes with an average start of second and an average finish of third.

With Gibbs second in Xfinity points and locked into the Playoffs, no wonder Alpern and JGR are having so much fun.