It was a scary moment for Ty Gibbs in the driver’s second eight-minute practice session for Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series Busch Light Clash at the LA Memorial Coliseum. With around three minutes left in the session, a fire broke out in the cockpit of Gibbs’ car.
As smoke and flames engulfed the cabin of the No. 54 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota Camry, Gibbs was able to get the car stopped and climbed from the machine with no issues.
Here is video of the incident that surfaced on Twitter:
Scary moment in practice for @TyGibbs as a fire builds in the cockpit
The No. 54 sits P6 overall.#NASCAR #BuschLightClash pic.twitter.com/FaEGiCAe4I
— NASCAR on TSN (@NASCARonTSN) February 5, 2023
After the fire, the car was towed back to the work area, where the Joe Gibbs Racing team is diagnosing whether the car is able to be utilized for Busch Light Clash qualifying on Saturday evening.
At the time of the fire, Gibbs was ranked sixth on the overall leaderboard for Saturday’s practice sessions.
Overall, four Toyota Camrys, including three of them from Joe Gibbs Racing, ranked inside the top 10 of the speed charts. Martin Truex Jr., who drives the No. 19 entry for JGR, sat atop the speed charts at the time of Gibbs’ fire.
The 20-year-old Gibbs scored the 2022 NASCAR Xfinity Series championship with a victory in the season-finale at Phoenix Raceway. In just 51 career starts in NASCAR Xfinity Series competition, Gibbs has accumulated 11 victories.
When Kurt Busch sustained a season-ending concussion at Pocono Raceway, Gibbs served as a fill-in driver for the No. 45 23XI Racing team. Gibbs made 15 NASCAR Cup Series starts a season ago with a best finish of 10th coming at Michigan International Speedway.
2 Responses
Why was Ty Gibbs disqualified before qualifying for unapproved changes. Again before qualifying I thought u could change whatever u chose. After qualifying u either lost ur starting spot or lost points. So what gives here????
NASCAR allowed the 54 team to make repairs to anything that was damaged by the fire. In NASCAR’s opinion, some of the scope of work on the 54 car went beyond repair to the burned up areas, which is why they would not allow the car to qualify.