While the big talk of the town following Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series Autotrader EchoPark 500 at Texas Motor Speedway was whether NASCAR will step in and penalize William Byron for retaliating against fellow Playoff contender Denny Hamlin by spinning him out under caution, Byron is not the only driver who faces a possible penalty this week.
Ty Gibbs, who has driving a 23XI Racing entry in the NASCAR Cup Series in relief of Kurt Busch who has been out due to injury since Pocono, very well could be suffering a sanction from NASCAR this week for a less than intelligent move while exiting pit road in Sunday’s race.
Ty Dillon, who was powering out of his pit stall, accidentally made slight contact with Gibbs’ No. 23 machine. Following the slight scrub, Gibbs turned left and slammed into Dillon which sent the No. 42 car skidding toward a pit box full of crew members.
Dillon locked up his wheels and was able to get his car slowed and turned away from the stall, but it was a dicey situation.
Here is video of the situation in question:
Not to mention this incident between Ty Gibbs and Ty Dillon… pic.twitter.com/jAP00167hF
— ???? (@kvapilnation) September 26, 2022
Elton Sawyer, NASCAR’s VP of Officiating and Inspections, briefly touched on Gibbs’ incident while talking about the potential penalties that could be dished out to Byron, and Sawyer indicated that NASCAR is certainly looking at the pit road incident and determining what, if any, action they need to take.
“Oh absolutely. All of those will be reviewed,” Sawyer said. “And I think we talked about this — several weeks ago — about in race penalties with contact and drivers having a disagreement over real estate one is using versus the other. We don’t have all of that information at that time. And even if we have camera views, it’s a view we may take from the tower that may or may not be 100% accurate.
“We feel like in some of those cases, we’re better to let the race unfold and then address those on Monday or Tuesday. The same we’ll do with the No. 23 on pit road yesterday and the No. 42 as well as the No. 11 and the No. 24. Looking at all of those situations today and tomorrow and getting to a good place there, where we feel we can move forward going into Talladega this week.”
Gibbs has one top-10 finish through his first 10 NASCAR Cup Series starts. The 19-year old grandson of Joe Gibbs had been piloting 23XI’s No. 45 entry, until the team opted to swap Bubba Wallace into the No. 45 for the Playoffs to give them the best chance at an Owner’s Championship.
While Gibbs has been gaining experience on the NASCAR Cup Series side, as he is expected to be the guy to replace Kyle Busch in the No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing machine next season, the youngster is locked in a fevered battle for the NASCAR Xfinity Series championship.
Gibbs has five wins in the NASCAR Xfinity Series this season.
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