Michael C. Johnson-USA TODAY Sports

Watch: Huge fire on the pit-lane ignited by Ryan Blaney ruins Ty Gibbs’ race strategy at Texas

Originally posted on FirstSportz | By Justin P Joy | Last updated 4/15/24

The NASCAR Cup Series race at Texas Motor Speedway was a story chaos. It featured a clean stage one that saw Kyle Larson producing an impressive run to secure the stage win, before things going south for the racers. There were multiple driver that spun out, there were multiple wrecks, including the one on the second overtime that ended the race.

But the wildest moment of the day came in the pit-road when the pit-box of Joe Gibbs Racing’s Ty Gibbs surprisingly caught on fire. During a significant pit-cycle, the No:54 team was getting ready to change tiers, when they spotted a rubber residual that was on their pit-box caught on fire. It created a huge black smoke.

Gibbs, who hasn’t yet entered the pit-lane was told to stay on the trac for couple more minutes while the crew started working on putting out the fire. This delay cost the Toyota team valuable time that would have helped them to score a good finish, as they had the fastest cars of the day in the No:45 Camry.

Initially it was thought that the fire came from the pit-box of Corey Lejoie, that was besides the No:45 team, but latest video footage suggest that the rubber on the pavement caught on fire when, the reigning Cup champion Ryan Blaney drove to the No:12 teams’ pit-box via the No:45 teams’ designated area.

Despite the misshaped Ty Gibbs finished the day as the best JGR

Every JGR driver on Sunday at Texas was involved in one wild incident or another, hence no one was able to secure a top-10 finish. This came in a race where the Toyota’s of 23XI Racing, Bubba Wallace and Tyler Reddick, secured top-10 finishes.

Gibbs finished one place above his veteran teammate Martin Truex Jr. at P14. Their teammate Christopher Bell , who was involved in spin that caused a chain reaction that resulted in Alex Bowman’s DNF, secured a P17 finish.

Denny Hamlin was the worst finishing JGR driver of the day. Just like Gibbs, he had fast car capable of winning the race but on the final stage while fighting race winner Chase Elliott for the win he spun out. He ended up finishing in P30.

It was a day to forget for whole JGR garage, after having an impressive streak in the last five races, as the execution was off from it’s drivers on track while they were some mistakes on the pits as well. They would be hoping to bounce back strong in the next week at Talladega Superspeedway.

This article first appeared on FirstSportz and was syndicated with permission.

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