Former Washington football coach turned NASCAR owner Joe Gibbs may be looking at his home or office trophy case trying to find room for what could be his latest addition. His eighteen-year-old grandson is a full-time competitor in the ARCA Menards Series and with 9 wins on the season leads the ARCA Menards point standings. Only Georgia’s Cory Heim seems capable of stopping Gibbs’ quest for the ARCA crown.
The ARCA Menards Series Southern Illinois 100 presented by Lucas Oil at Du Quoin could extend Gibbs point lead or could erase it. Ty was a strong second at the Allen Crowe 100 on the Illinois State Fair dirt, but second to closest rival Heim, who dominated the 100-mile affair. Heim’s win closed the point gap from seven to one and gave Heim his sixth win in 2021. However, Gibbs led all laps of the Sprecher 150 at the Milwaukee Mile on Sunday to increase his point lead to eleven heading to Du Quoin as Heim finished sixth. Either Gibbs or Heim have won all but one race on the 2021 ARCA schedule and the two have combined to win most of the pole positions as well.
In 2017 and 2018 Ty was given an opportunity to run short track late models in the CARS series and found modest success. In 2019 he ran selected events in the ARCA Menard’s Series at age 16 and scored two wins. In 2020 he ran a variety of ARCA Menard’s East, West and National events. He won once in the East Series and six times in the National series. It looked as if he was ready to move up. However, the Gibbs team and family decided not to push the young Gibbs along. He turned 18 during the ARCA Allen Crowe 100 at Springfield in 2020 and while that made him eligible to run the big speedways, the family decided to run Ty Gibbs for the 2021 ARCA crown. Gibbs appears to be laser focused in his drive for a title.
In three years of ARCA competition Gibbs has seventeen wins and fourteen pole positions. During 2021 Gibbs has nine wins including Phoenix, Kansas, Charlotte, Mid-Ohio and Winchester. The Toyota driven by Gibbs and wrenched by Mark McFarland has been up front for over 1200 of the laps completed in 2021. Along the way, he made his NASCAR Xfinity debut on the Daytona road course and won in his first ever NASCAR event. He won two other Xfinity races along the way but remains committed to securing the ARCA title.
Gibbs second place finish at Springfield was his best ever on any one-mile dirt track. Ty will be a true rookie on the Magic Mile, while the team ran in 2018 and 2019 with Riley Herbst, Gibbs has never turned a wheel on the Du Quoin dirt.
Practice for the ARCA MenardS Series Southern Illinois 100 presented by Lucas Oil is slated for 4:15 p.m. Sunday with General Tire Pole Qualifying at 6 and the 100-mile event at 8. Tickets will be available on raceday or by calling the Du Quoin Fair office at 618-542-1535. Info and tickets can also be obtained by calling the Track Enterprises office at 217-764-3200.
For more information, visit www.trackenterprises.com.
Track Enterprises PR
