Ty Gibbs had come close on multiple occasions before, but after 131 NASCAR Cup Series starts, including 116 behind the wheel of the No. 54 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota, he finally earned his first victory in Sunday's Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway.
Gibbs entered the 505-lap race around the four-turn, 0.533-mile (0.858-kilometer) high-banked Bristol, Tennessee oval in sixth place in the point standings, second among drivers without a victory this year.
This year's first four winners, 23XI Racing's Tyler Reddick, Team Penske's Ryan Blaney, Joe Gibbs Racing's Denny Hamlin, and Hendrick Motorsports' Chase Elliott, occupied the top four spots, in that order. Hendrick Motorsports' William Byron was the sport's top winless driver in fifth.
With Gibbs' victory, he vaulted up to fourth place, dropping Elliott to fifth. Meanwhile, Byron and the No. 24 team had an absolutely disastrous weekend, comparable to the weekend that Joey Logano and the No. 22 Team Penske team had at Darlington Raceway a few weeks ago.
The usual frontrunner simply had no pace and had to settle for a 30th place finish, five laps off the lead lap, and was lapped early on in the race after qualifying 34th and being forced to drop even further back at the start due to a pre-race penalty.
Byron dropped to seventh place in the point standings, and it was teammate Kyle Larson who moved into sixth after starting the day in an eighth place tie.
Larson, who matched his season-best finish with a third place effort on Sunday after leading the most laps and winning both stage one and stage two, is now the top winless driver in the series.
The driver of the No. 5 Chevrolet is still searching for his first victory since he won at Kansas Speedway, the host of this coming weekend's race, back in May 2025, even though he managed to win the championship. By this point a year ago, he already had two victories, including a dominant victory at Bristol.
Larson occupies the top spot among winless drivers by 15 points over Byron, with 23XI Racing's Bubba Wallace sitting a further nine points behind Byron in eighth.
Full point standings can be found here.
Kansas Speedway is scheduled to host the ninth race on the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series schedule this Sunday, April 19. Live coverage is set to be provided by Fox starting at 2:00 p.m. ET, so start a free trial of FuboTV now and don't miss it!
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