When he entered the NASCAR Cup Series as a 20-year-old rookie in 2023, Ty Gibbs was one of the brightest young prospects the sport had seen in some time.
Suffice to say, not many expected him to still be searching for his first career win in late 2025, with more than 100 starts under his belt. After achieving his first Cup Series playoff berth last season, the grandson of Super Bowl-winning NFL head coach-turned-NASCAR team owner Joe Gibbs has taken a step back in year three, and many have wondered what has gone wrong for the youngster who was supposed to be on the fast track to superstardom.
That answer has never been clearer than it was in Sunday's Go Bowling at the Glen at Watkins Glen International, after a heated exchange between Gibbs and Joe Gibbs Racing competition director Chris Gabehart.
Ty Gibbs' problems are all between the ears, and he must learn from Sunday's disaster
At the start of the third and final stage at Watkins Glen, Gibbs was in position to potentially win when he lined up inside the top 10 with less tire wear than everyone in front of him.
Unfortunately for him, Shane van Gisbergen had even fresher tires and came charging through the field en route to another dominant road course win, passing the 22-year-old within only a few laps of the restart. Then, tensions boiled over.
"We're (expletive) right now, so we've gotta do something different," Gibbs told Gabehart, who has been assisting No. 54 crew chief Tyler Allen with calling the shots on the team.
Gabehart, who was having none of it, replied "You can call the strategy if you want, or we can keep rolling. But I would do the best I could to go as fast as I can."
From that point on, it was a full-scale implosion. Gibbs surrendered track position in a hurry before making his final scheduled pit stop, in which the car fell off the jack. Then, with a few laps to go, the team decided to pit again as a Hail Mary strategy, the logic being that if a caution came out, everybody else would come in. It didn't work, and the No. 54 team finished 33rd.
Gibbs was far from alone in contributing to the poor result, but it underscores what has been a problem for him throughout his Cup Series career: he crumbles at even the slightest hint of adversity.
For a driver born into an affluent team ownership family, who has had all of the advantages at every step of his development, the challenges of NASCAR's top level have been a rude awakening for him, and it shows.
That said, it's not a verdict on how Gibbs' career will play out, but rather something that can be used as a learning experience. He needs to use Gabehart's tough love as motivation and develop a more hardened mentality in how he approaches the harsh realities of Cup Series racing, because there's no escaping the bumps in the road. There's only overcoming them.