NASCAR, a team sport?
Gibbs prevails in overtime to earn first AMS win
Ty Gibbs poses in Victory Lane after earning his second win of the season. After taking the lead to begin double overtime, Gibbs held off Ryan Sieg and the rest of the field in the Nalley Cars 250. “I have great relationships with all of [my teammates]. I’m very thankful,” Gibbs said. “I love Joe Gibbs Racing. It’s home.”
After two attempts at overtime Ty Gibbs, driver of the No. 54 Sport Clips Haircuts Toyota, passed Ryan Sieg in the No. 39 to capture the checkered flag in the Nalley Cars 250.
“It’d be cool if I could have helped Sieg get a win in, get a good run in tonight,” Gibbs said. “When it comes down to winning and all those little things, I feel like you got to be selfish, especially in those moments.”
Austin Hill, driving the No. 21 Bennett Transportation and Logistics Chevrolet, finished second. AJ Allmendinger finished third in his No. 16 Action Industries Chevrolet. Riley Herbst finished fourth in the No. 98 Monster Energy Ford, as Landon Cassill rounded out the top-five driving the No. 10 Voyager: Crypto for All Chevrolet.
“Me and the 21 work well together,” Herbst said. “I pushed him to the win at Daytona, so I knew we would have a good [partner].”
Teammates had each other’s back throughout the first two stages. Similar to the Fr8 208 earlier in the day, however, the final stage was every driver for himself.
“I was really getting frustrated early in the race with how everyone was wanting to ride up against the wall like we would at Daytona or Talladega,” Hill said. “I’m on the bottom just trying to make things happen. We are here to race, so let’s race.”
Noah Gragson in the No. 9 Bass Pro Shops Chevrolet led 38 of 40 laps in the opening stage of the race. His JR Motorsports teammate Josh Berry passed him coming out of turn 4 on the final lap of the stage to earn the stage win. Fellow JRM drivers Justin Allgaier and Sam Mayer made it a clean sweep of the top four positions to end the first stage.
AJ Allmendinger, driver of the No. 16 Action Industries Chevrolet for Kaulig Racing, led all of the second stage. Teammate Daniel Hemric followed in second the entire time.
“I hate this type of racing, but it’s probably better racing than what we would have saw with our normal aero package, running around the bottom with no one passing each other,” Allmendinger said.
The final stage was packed with the most action and the only stage that saw wrecks. With 57 laps to go multiple cars collided causing the first accident of the race. Shortly after the restart, Hemric slipped up the track, collecting Joe Graf Jr.
Caution flew again with 34 to go when Mayer spun on the frontstretch, blowing out a tire. The fourth caution of the stage flew when Trevor Bayne moved up the track to block and triggered a multi-car accident that included all four JRM drivers.
With only a handful of laps remaining, Myatt Snider, with some help from Herbst behind him, spun going into turn one, triggering the first attempt at NASCAR overtime.
Jesse Iwuji, Matt Mills, and Stefan Parsons collided once more, sending the event into double overtime. This was the tenth caution thrown, tying the track record.
In second overtime, Ty Gibbs held off the field to achieve his second win of this year, the sixth of his career, and his first at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
“Patience is a big thing,” Gibbs said. “It ain’t over until it’s over.”
Heading into next week, Gragson is the leader by 19 over Gibbs and Allmendinger who are tied for second.
The Xfinity Series heads to the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas, next weekend for the Pit Boss 250 on March 26.
