Food City 500: Ty Gibbs finally earns first career Cup Series win at Bristol

BRISTOL, Tenn. — After 131 career starts in the NASCAR Cup Series, Ty Gibbs finally earned his first career win at the premier level after taking the checkered flag in the Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway.

The 2022 O’Reilly Auto Parts Series champion seemed like he was going to be a threat to win in the Cup Series right off the bat. However, that was not the case for the Joe Gibbs Racing driver, as it took the 23-year-old nearly four full seasons of Cup competition to find Victory Lane.

After finishing in the top 10 in just under 30% of his career starts, Gibbs’ No. 54 Monster Energy Toyota earned a big breakthrough win in Thunder Valley.

“It’s awesome,” Gibbs said about winning in the Cup Series. “It’s awesome to be with great people. To be in this position is great. I’d love for my father to have seen this. I knew he knew it was going to happen and expected it as well. It was great day for us. My boys didn’t give up. Pit crew is just amazing. This is our family. It’s been great. So it’s just such great deal. Very honored to be in this situation. Thank you for Monster Energy. Been with me my whole career. Mitch Covington, Dave Gowland, Elton, everybody a part of it. They’ve been with me since I was a kid. I really appreciate this.

“Honestly, I didn’t really know or care if I was going to win or not. I thought the race was awesome. I thought we all put on the racing was great. Feel like it’s been us the whole year. I really appreciate always racing Ryan Blaney and Kyle [Larson] too. Those guys always run me real well. We all run together and hard. Hopefully, we put a great show on for the fans. Thank you for Team 54, everybody that’s a part of this whole deal. What a great day.”

The first career win did not come easily, as a couple of late-race cautions put Gibbs in a situation where Ryan Blaney was side-by-side on four fresh Goodyear tires, and Kyle Larson was right behind with two fresh tires. However, Gibbs held off the two most dominant cars of the race to seal the deal.

Blaney, who started on pole in his No. 12 Discount Tire Ford, led six times for 190 total laps, finishing third in Stage 1 and second in Stage 2. After a runner-up finish and scoring 53 points, the Team Penske driver closed the gap to points leader Tyler Reddick (-62) after having an 82-point deficit entering Bristol.

Despite not getting his first victory at Bristol, Blaney now has four straight finishes inside the top six at “The Last Great Colosseum.”

“Before the last yellow, I was side-by-side for the lead and I slipped into three and that kind of cost us a shot to get it before that last yellow,” Blaney said. “I thought I had a good restart, but the bottom was just hard to hit. I didn’t maybe get the best one and two the last lap and didn’t have a far enough position, and then I really got a good three and four coming to the checkered, but it was a little bit too late. I’m disappointed we didn’t win, but, overall, I’m really proud of the effort. I had a great day and got better all day. It’s definitely something to be proud of.

“You never forget your first one, that’s for sure,” Blaney said about Gibbs’ first win. “Even though I’m bummed we didn’t win the race, I’m happy that Ty was able to get his first one because I remember what that was like and I remember the elation and the joy, especially when you’ve come close a handful of times, which he has. Honestly, Ty has dealt with a lot of criticism from the outside, and I feel like he’s handled it pretty well and it’s good to see that he’s been able to prove himself on the race track. You never forget that first one. I hope they have a good time.”

For the second straight NASCAR event, Larson had the most dominant car in the field and came up short. In the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series race on Saturday night, Larson swept the stages, leading four times for 230 laps, and finished second. In the Cup Series race, Larson swept the stages, leading five times for 284 laps, and finished third.

“It was just really aggressive, hard racing there at the end,” Larson said. “Ty (Gibbs, race winner) did a great job of hanging on with fresher tires behind him. Just proud of this No. 5 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet team. We had a great day. (Ryan) Blaney probably had the best car, but his pit crew was putting him behind all day, which allowed us to lead a lot of laps and win both stages. I knew he’d be hard to beat. I was watching my mirror; he’d have a bad pit stop and drive right back up to second with no problem. We were just a little too free to run the pace he was running around the bottom, even on the top, too. All in all, we’ll take it — two stage wins and a third-place finish.”

Results from the 2026 Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway are listed below:

Other Race Facts

Joe Gibbs Racing team owner Joe Gibbs was very happy to see his grandson, Ty Gibbs, earn his first career win in the NASCAR Cup Series.

Gibbs was the first first time winner at Bristol Motor Speedway since Kurt Busch, the driver who he subbed for while making his Cup Series debut with 23XI Racing back in 2022, in 2002. Gibbs also joined Dale Earnhardt, Rusty Wallace, Ernie Irvan, Elliott Sadler, and the aforementioned Busch as the only drivers in NASCAR Cup Series history to earn their first career victory at Bristol Motor Speedway.

According to NASCAR Insights, the 0.055-second margin of victory for Gibbs was the closest margin of victory at Bristol Motor Speedway since April 1991. The win for the No. 54 Monster Energy Toyota was also the first win for that car number in the Cup Series since Lennie Pond won at Talladega in 1978.

Todd Gilliland’s No. 34 Front Row Motorsports team took a gamble for two tires that paid off. After starting 35th, Gilliland went on to finish sixth, which was the best short-track finish of his Cup Series career.

“We weren’t great to start and that’s kind of how we were in practice, but it seemed like when the groove moved up to the top for us we were way better,” Gilliland said. “It was like a different car. It’s a pretty awesome day for us. To recover from qualifying 35th at Bristol is tough to do, so, honestly, I’m just so proud of my team. We’ve got to work on qualifying. I think a lot of it is on me. That’s not a great feeling to have as a driver, but I’m so proud of our fight today.”

According to motorsports journalist Seth Eggert, Richard Childress Racing has gone eight consecutive Cup Series points-paying races without a top-10 finish for the first time as a multi-car team and for the first time since 1981.

Alex Bowman competed in his first Cup Series race since March 1 at Circuit of The Americas. Unfortunately, the driver of the No. 48 Ally Chevrolet was involved in an early incident and finished 37th after being sidelined due to vertigo.

Christopher Bell and William Byron are two of the usual favorites when NASCAR heads to Bristol. However, the race did not go according to plan for either driver.

Bell bounced off the wall multiple times and brought out the caution on Lap 145. After going four laps down, Bell could only salvage a 27th-place finish. Byron, on the other hand, showed no pace at all. After starting 34th, the Hendrick Motorsports driver finished 30th, five laps down.

Besides Kyle Larson, Ryan Blaney and Gibbs, Chase Elliott was the only other driver in the Cup Series field to lead the 2026 Food City 500. Elliott led six laps (65-70), while the three aforementioned drivers led the other 499.

GRID RANKING

The 2026 GRID Ranking is the 10th year of the world’s premier motorsports ranking system, which was initially released on Sunday, April 5.

The official ranking includes drivers participating in seven racing series (NASCAR, IndyCar, Formula 1, Formula E, WRC, Supercars, MotoGP). Each driver earns GRID Ratings, which help determine their seeding in the GRID Ranking.

DRIVER	OLD RATING	PREVIOUS RANKING	MOST RECENT FINISH	NEW RATING	NEW RANKING
Tyler Reddick	21.99	2nd	4th	21.46	2nd
Ty Gibbs	11.42	T-20th	1st	14.62	10th
Ryan Blaney	11.21	22nd	2nd	13.14	13th
Chase Elliott	12.90	14th	22nd	11.29	21st
Denny Hamlin	11.42	T-20th	9th	10.36	24th

Week 2 of the GRID Ranking:

Tyler Reddick currently leads the NASCAR GRID Rating in Week 2 of the GRID Ranking, and is expected to lead the NASCAR Rating for weeks to come. Ty Gibbs makes his first appearance inside the top 10 of the overall GRID Ranking, with Ryan Blaney, Chase Elliott and Denny Hamlin rounding out the remaining NASCAR drivers.

The next race on the NASCAR Cup Series schedule is the AdventHealth 400 at Kansas Speedway on Sunday, April 19. Coverage will begin at 2 p.m. ET on FOX.

 

GRID Network