The Gibbs family needed a lift and young Ty Randall Gibbs gave it to them.
In his first Late Model Stock race for Nelson Motorsports, the grandson of Coach Joe Gibbs and nephew of J.D. parked his No. 18 in victory lane on Saturday night in the Icebreaker at Myrtle Beach Speedway.
It was an emotional victory for Gibbs as his family is still mourning the passing of ‘Uncle JD’ last month. The funeral took place last week and the 16-year-old was able to honor him with a JGR level performance in the season-opening event for the NASCAR Whelen All-American Series.
Per the Fourth Turn’s live report:
With just over 10 laps to go, Gibbs, who started the race in 12th, made his way around Will Burns to take over the lead. Burns had been extremely dominant throughout the afternoon, leading the most laps, but it was Gibbs who saved his tires for the end of the race. After surviving a late-race restart, Gibbs set sail to capture the victory.
Gibbs has won a handful of Late Model Stock races at Hickory when he drove for Greg Marlowe, but this one was special for obvious reasons, as made clear in the Race22.com report.
“I have a great group of guys who did a great job today talking me through the race and everything,” Ty Gibbs told Race22.com in victory lane after the race. “It just means a lot to get this win. This is for J.D. too. He’s up there, he’s probably smiling too on some type of racetrack up there. This means a lot. I had a blast up there and my guys did a great job.”
Ryan Millington finished the race in second and defending track champion Justin Milliken completed the podium. Both Gibbs and Milliken drove Nelson powered cars in the event.
The 125-lap ordeal was a tire-management game with most drivers conserving their equipment for the first half.
Coach Gibbs was in attendance, and praised his grandson’s effort.
“When your grandson wins something like this, it’s a huge deal,” Joe Gibbs said. “I don’t think there’s any emotion any bigger in sports. I really appreciate everybody, Timothy’s (Peters) team and everybody here today. I just really appreciate them. The Lord has blessed us.”
The complete results from the Icebreaker can be found below.
- Ty Gibbs
- Ryan Millington
- Justin Milliken
- Bradley McCaskill
- Jacob Heafner
- Brody Pope
- Luke Sorrow
- Mike Darne
- Jason York
- Peyton Sellers
- Sam Yarbrough
- Corey Heim
- Layne Riggs
- Austin Somero
- Will Burns
- Bob Saville
- David Roberts
- Brian Vause
- Chris Throckmorton
- Cameron Bowen
- Dillon Houser
- Jerry Miracle
- Austin McDaniel
- Angela Ruch
- Matt Cox
- Jamie Weatherford
- Chad McCumbee
- Brian Mundy
- Justin Hicks
- Lucas Williams
- Ed Williams
- Melvin Langley
- Matthew Linker
- Stuart Ricks
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