Ty Gibbs won the NASCAR Xfinity Series championship and the final race of the 2022 season on Phoenix Raceway in what was a commanding effort just one week removed from the torrent of drama he caused at Martinsville Speedway.
Noah Gragson, Justin Allgaier, Landon Cassill and AJ Allmendinger rounded out the rest of the top five, as Gragson and Allgaier’s late race efforts at an overtake came up just short.
This might have been the most disappointing, yet foreshadowing Xfinity championship in recent memory, but not for the reasons you expect.
The Winners
Joe Gibbs is the real winner this week, because now he can at least say that despite all of his shortcomings (and believe me, there are many), his grandson is a championship-level driver.
“We had a tough week,” Gibbs after the race. “Everybody knows last week was … it wound up just being a terrible experience, and I know how that came across to everybody, so this week was really hard all week.”
It sounds like Coach Gibbs didn’t catch much shuteye since Martinsville, but he can at least rest easier now, and I’d expect an announcement to come soon about a certain young driver filling the No. 18 NASCAR Cup Series seat.
Pit crews are something that get overlooked far too often in our sport, but their importance shined brighter than ever underneath the lights, as Gibbs’ late race lead was due holistically to his team’s best 13.7-second stop of the night.
In comparison, Gragson’s final pit stop dropped him all the way down to eighth on the grid, which forced him to drive through some of the fastest cars in the field. By the time he had reached Gibbs, lap traffic was in the way, and they certainly didn’t do Gragson any favors either. If he would have been able to start right behind or beside Gibbs, we might be having a very different conversation right now.
The Losers
NASCAR fans lost last night.
Gibbs wrote the biggest chapter yet in his penultimate villain origin story, right before a probable jump to the Cup Series, no less. I didn’t believe he would make it out of the first stage, but when nobody can catch you, it’s hard to get turned.
Ty Gibbs wins the Xfinity title in his first full season. 11 wins and a championship at age 20. Fans booing like crazy. pic.twitter.com/TpqhrQOorg
— Jeff Gluck (@jeff_gluck) November 6, 2022
The final Loser of the season has to go to none other than JR Motorsports. After spending just about the entire season on the Winners…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at Frontstretch…