By just 0.055 seconds following an overtime restart, Joe Gibbs Racing's Ty Gibbs held off Team Penske's Ryan Blaney to secure his first NASCAR Cup Series victory in his 131st career start in Sunday's Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway.
The victory made Gibbs the fifth different winner in eight races this season, and it boosted him up to fifth place in the point standings. He is riding a six-race streak of top six finishes, as his only non-top six finishes this season came in the two superspeedway races to open up the year.
In other words, the driver of the No. 54 Toyota might very well be a championship threat, for as much as a contingent of fans hate to admit it. His breakthrough was a long time coming, and now the floodgates might very well be open.
However, Gibbs isn't necessarily locked into the NASCAR playoffs.
Under NASCAR's new postseason format, the top 16 drivers in the point standings at the end of the regular season are locked into the playoffs, regardless of whether they won any of the 26 regular season races or not. There is no more "win and in" element to the playoff format.
In fact, even if the old "win and in" format were still in place, rather than the new "Chase" setup, Gibbs would not actually be mathematically locked in yet.
Under the format used from 2014 to 2025, the 16 playoff spots were awarded to the regular season champion and the 15 drivers who ranked next highest in victories.
With 26 regular season races, there could be no more than 13 multi-race winners, so only the drivers with two or more wins at this point in the season would have been locked in. Right now, that list includes only 23XI Racing's Tyler Reddick, although again, even he isn't yet locked in under the new format.
Under the previous format, the tiebreaker to fill the postseason field, either among single-race winners or non-winners, was points. This year, points and points alone are set to determine the entire field, with any ties set to be broken by best finish (then second best finish, third best finish, etc.).
This is not to say that Gibbs isn't in a great position, even after missing the playoffs a year ago for the second time in three years. He finds himself 105 points above the cut line, so if he can even come close to the performance he's shown so far this year over the next 18 race weekends, he shouldn't have to sweat it out.
Gibbs missed the playoffs despite finishing 16th in the regular season standings in 2025. However, he actually would have missed out even under the new format, as the bonus points now awarded for victories (55 total points instead of 40) would have vaulted Trackhouse Racing's Shane van Gisbergen from 25th to 16th, two points ahead of Gibbs in 17th.
This year, Gibbs is looking to leave absolutely zero doubt, and he appears to be well on his way to doing that.
Drivers are set to be awarded bonus points to start the postseason, depending on where they finish in the regular season standings. If the playoffs were to end today, Gibbs would be awarded 60 bonus points, placing him 40 points out of the lead before the 10-race Chase.
The ninth race on the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series schedule is the AdventHealth 400, which is set to be shown live on Fox from Kansas Speedway starting at 2:00 p.m. ET this Sunday, April 19. Start a free trial of FuboTV today and catch all of the action!
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