Hard Decision: Joe Gibbs Racing Co-Owner Admits to Big Concern With Ty Gibbs and No. 54 Team
Through the first four races of the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season, Ty Gibbs has a single top 20 to his credit, a 16th in the season-opening Daytona 500. Since then, he’s recorded a 32nd at Atlanta, 34th at Circuit of the Americas and 25th last weekend at Phoenix.
However, that’s just this season. The struggles for the No. 54 team go back to last year. In the final 10 races of the season, the Joe Gibbs Racing driver scored a single top 10 – a fifth at Kansas. Conversely, he recorded five finishes of 30th or worse.
Add in his pair of finishes of 30th or worse this year and in the last 14 races the 22-year-old has finished 30th or worse in half of them.
On Wednesday, JGR co-owner and Ty’s mom, Heather, appeared on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. After talking about the success of Christopher Bell to start the 2025 campaign, show host Dave Moody turned to the No. 54’s lackluster stretch of races, including being 34th in the point standings and asked if she was concerned.
”I mean, you’re concerned,” Gibbs admitted. “I mean, obviously we want to compete. We want to compete for our sponsors and show up to the track with fast cars every week. And we believe we have that. It’s unfortunate the first two races of our season are superspeedways, you know, basically back to back.
“It’s hard because your drivers get rattled if they get their bell rung. They’re going right back to another track where there’s a high probability of crashing. And we had that with Daytona and Atlanta. And so those are kind of hard.
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“You get to COTA, you’re ready to compete. They were pretty fast in practice and you get cleaned out by a competitor that took out quite a few cars in the first turn of the first lap. And then you’re driving – nursing a car the rest of the race.
“And then with Phoenix, I think with a different tire, I think they were fast on the reds and it just kind of circumstances. In this sport, you’re losing more than you’re winning and it’s about being mentally tough and being able to get back up every single time you get knocked down.
“And I think we have that with the 54 team. We made a bunch of changes in the offseason. So they’ve got some growing pains to learn what each other can do and support and lean on. We put (Chris) Gabehart in a competition role to lead that group. And we believe even without the results there, behind the scenes, there’s a lot of traction and just a matter of let’s just get a couple good finishes under our belt and let their confidence continue to build.”
