It’s been over a calendar year, but the ARCA Menards Series return to World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway still represents an anniversary of sorts for Ty Gibbs.
The 17-year-old driver from North Carolina returns Saturday back to the St. Louis-area track where he picked up his first career series win last June.
Gibbs will wheel the No. 18 Monster Energy/Terrible Herbst/ORCA Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing in Dutch Boy 150 (Saturday, 5 p.m. CT, MAVT/TrackPass on NBC Gold/MRN Radio) at the 1.25-mile oval. It will be race No. 13 of the ARCA Menards Series season, as well as race seven of 10 in the Sioux Chief Showdown.
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Gibbs enters the race fourth in the Showdown, but just seven points out of first. This season, he’s won three of his eight ARCA starts, but has two seconds and a 10th in three races since his last win at Iowa Speedway.
Hailie Deegan will be looking to make ARCA history as the first female to win a race. The 19-year-old from Temecula, California, will be at Gateway in the No. 4 Monster Energy Ford for DGR-Crosley. She’s already won on the West series under the NASCAR banner, and has a pair of top fives and 10 top 10s in her first year running the full ARCA Menards Series schedule.
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All three of Deegan’s wins in the West came on last-lap passes.
“I am going to race them hard for the win,” Deegan said. “The reason I wait until the last lap is that’s what my coach has told me to do. If it’s on the last lap, they don’t have any time to get back to you.”
That’s something Gibbs knows well from Gateway.
For the grandson of NASCAR and NFL Hall of Famer Joe Gibbs, the Gateway win was a matter of when and not if. Through the prior five starts, Ty Gibbs had been second three times. In addition, he had been runner-up in both of his East series starts.
So when he was running second heading into the final turns on the final lap, and Sam Mayer drifted up the track just enough for Gibbs to make his move, he didn’t hesitate.
“He left the door open, it was fair game,” said Gibbs in Victory Lane after that first win. “He had it won if he hadn’t left it wide open. I don’t know what he was doing, but we won the race.”
Once Gibbs found Victory Lane at Gateway, he hasn’t slowed down.
In 22 races since, he has seven wins, five seconds and two thirds in 22 starts.
He’ll be looking to return to that winning form after a couple of near misses, which, ironically, were Mayer wins.
Gibbs wasn’t able to make the pass of Mayer in the first race of a doubleheader weekend at Toledo Speedway in Ohio last month, settling for second. He lost the lead to Mayer on a late-race restart in the second race, and spun trying to get it back. The subsequent caution wound up turning into the end of the race when rain cut it short and Gibbs was left with a 10th-place finish.
After a back-and-forth with ARCA Menards Series championship points leader Michael Self at the DAYTONA Road Course, he was left with another runner-up finish — one spot ahead of Mayer.
And last weekend at Dover International Speedway in the ARCA Menards Series East race, Gibbs led 110 of 125 laps. He was passed by Mayer and then cut a tire and slammed the wall, ending the afternoon in 12th.
He heads back to the midwest and the site of that first win, hoping to get back to the familiar confines of Victory Lane.
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1 year ago I got my first arca win. This definitely is one of my favorites. #nevergiveup #nascar
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