NASCAR: Ty Gibbs proves Denny Hamlin was right

The actions of Ty Gibbs have proven Denny Hamlin right in regard to the comments he made about the younger NASCAR generation and their aggression.

In light of Ross Chastain’s move on A.J. Allmendinger to win the NASCAR Cup Series race at Circuit of the Americas a few weeks ago, Denny Hamlin, who won the following weekend’s race at Richmond Raceway, spoke with Jim Rome on the Jim Rome Show about the aggressiveness of the younger generation of drivers.

Hamlin said after Chastain’s win that there are no longer any consequences for making such moves, that drivers can now basically do whatever they want, and that this has become accepted. He told Rome that while aggressiveness is fine, he believes that there is a bigger issue, and that issue is the lack of respect had by the younger generation of drivers.

Here is what he told Rome.

"“The newer, younger generation that came in, it just seems like they are more aggressive. Now, more aggressive is fine, but I think it’s just — you could talk about a much bigger subject here of like just the lack of respect that people have for each other nowadays. All you have to do is log on Twitter to find that.“When we feel like there’s a barrier between us, people talk a lot of stuff. And when you’re in a car and you don’t have to answer to that person face to face, you’re willing to do things that you wouldn’t if you had to answer to it. And I think in the past, what happened is, you got wrecked or knocked out of the way, you’d get your front teeth knocked out.“Nowadays, crew members protect their guys, and it’s very corporate, very different sport than what it used to be. So these young guys feel like — and it’s not always young guys, us old veterans, we make our mistakes too — but they’re just more aggressive in thinking that, ‘Hey, the risk is worth the reward because the reward is winning, the risk is, eh, I might get a little backlash here and there and I might have to worry about that guy wrecking me in the future.’ But people just think it’s worth it nowadays.”"

Naturally, Hamlin’s comments drew some criticism, with some calling his statement hypocritical, given the move he made on Chase Elliott at Martinsville Speedway in 2017.

Less than a week later, Ty Gibbs proved Hamlin correct.

Gibbs, like Hamlin, competes for Joe Gibbs Racing, but in the Xfinity Series. The grandson of team owner Joe Gibbs has been criticized often throughout the start of his first full year at the sport’s second highest level, and for this very issue: lack of respect.

A way-too-aggressive move on a much slower Ryan Sieg in the opening laps at Las Vegas Motor Speedway left Sieg seeking payback, which he ultimately failed to get (so far, that is).

Then at Richmond Raceway, Gibbs moved teammate John Hunter Nemechek out of the way on the final corner of the final lap and went on to win the race. After the race, he said that Nemechek owed him one.

But Gibbs proved at Martinsville that simply saying that someone owes him one is easy. Actually taking it? Fat chance.

Finally, the moment which a considerable percentage of NASCAR fans had been waiting for: somebody drove Gibbs the way he drives everyone else. And it didn’t end well.

Gibbs led the field to the green flag on an overtime restart in Friday night’s Xfinity Series race at Martinsville Speedway, but on the final lap, teammate Brandon Jones got around him for the lead.

Jones went on to win, but chaos ensued behind them. Gibbs was also in a separate Dash 4 Cash battle for $100,000, and one of his competitors for the prize was longtime rival Sam Mayer of JR Motorsports.

Mayer ended up stuck in the middle of a three-wide battle coming out of turn four of the four-turn, 0.526-mile (0.847-kilometer) oval in Ridgeway, Virginia, with Kaulig Racing’s Landon Cassill on the inside and Gibbs on the outside.

Coming out of turn four, Mayer moved Gibbs out of the way to take the spot.

Unfortunately for Mayer, Kaulig Racing’s A.J. Allmendinger got around both of them to take the $100,000 prize.

It is worth noting that Mayer didn’t actually wreck Gibbs — the same way Gibbs didn’t actually wreck Nemechek. But when somebody actually drove Gibbs the way he drives everyone else, he proved that the “backlash” was too much to handle.

He decided he need to retaliate, and he needlessly damaged his #54 Toyota with post-race contact to Mayer’s #1 Chevrolet, despite being told on the radio to be smart. It was an ultimate lack of respect for the team that consistently gives him the fastest car in the garage.

Then after getting out of his car, Gibbs confronted Mayer, shoving a NASCAR official out of the way to do so. Unlike Gibbs, Mayer had already taken his helmet off. Gibbs shoved Mayer and then made the move to get away. Mayer attempted to confront him to continue the discussion, and Gibbs started swinging.

It’s so easy to drive everyone else the way Gibbs does when there are seemingly no consequences.

It’s so easy to dish it out.

But the 19-year-old Charlotte, North Carolina native proved himself to have the ultimate lack of respect for not only his competitors but his own team when someone finally gave him a taste of his own medicine.

And more than likely, Mayer won’t be the only one who ends up in this position.