Ty Gibbs wins with overtime move at Atlanta

The 19-year-old Ty Gibbs has won NASCAR Xfinity Series of many varieties, from his series début to dominating a road course, and now to winning on a pseudo-superspeedway with a last-lap overtime move. A strong run on the final lap propelled Gibbs to his sixth career Xfinity win and first on the reconfigured Atlanta Motor Speedway.

Noah Gragson, last week’s winner in Phoenix and who had one of his 2021 trips to Atlanta end with a fight with current Kaulig Racing Cup colleague Daniel Hemric, started on the pole and led the until the competition caution. Gragson continued to lead on the restart but JR Motorsports team-mate Josh Berry ultimately beat him to the stage win; JRM drivers locked out the top four with Gragson, Justin Allgaier, and Sam Mayer following. Behind were Trevor Bayne, Austin Hill, Jeb Burton, Brandon Brown, Brandon Jones, and Sheldon Creed.

Gragson’s race began to deteriorate after hitting the wall on lap 51 which dropped him a lap off the leaders. At stage’s end, A.J. Allmendinger led Hemric, Jade Buford, Tommy Joe Martins, Sage Karam, Creed, Brown, Hill, Trevor Bayne, and Jeb Burton. Lap 105 saw the first wreck of the day involving Buford and Jeremy Clements, which was followed by an accident claiming Joe Graf Jr. and Hemric. Mayer spun on lap 128, followed by Creed, Berry, and Brown spinning together ten circuits later. The largest accident of the night came on lap 152 with twelve drivers being collected on the frontstretch.

Myatt Snider was the leader under the ensuing caution laps, but a shower of sparks led to him being off the pace coming to the restart before he was clipped from behind by Herbst on the frontstretch, though he avoided impact with the field. The incident resulted in overtime, only for another caution to wave after multiple drivers crashed again which necessitated a twelve-minute red flag for cleanup.

Ryan Sieg and Hill comprised the front row for the second overtime attempt. Hill was the leader as he took the white flag, but Gibbs found a run on the inside as they approached turn one and cleared him for the lead and eventually the victory. He is the first repeat winner of the 2022 Xfinity season after winning at Las Vegas a fortnight ago.

The overtake for the win meant both NASCAR support races at Atlanta on Saturday ended with a Toyota driver making a final-lap pass in the tri-oval for the win. Corey Heim, whom Gibbs beat for the 2021 ARCA Menards Series championship, pulled the same move in the Camping World Truck Series race earlier in the day.

“If there is a gap, you’ve got to take it like Aryton Senna said, I did it,” commented Gibbs. “There almost wasn’t a gap, but there was and send it.”