Ty Gibbs, driver of the #18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota, celebrates in Victory Lane after winning the General Tire 125 for the ARCA Menards Series East at Dover International Speedway in Dover, Delaware, on May 14, 2021. (Craig Hudson/ARCA Racing)
Ty Gibbs, driver of the #18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota, celebrates in Victory Lane after winning the General Tire 125 for the ARCA Menards Series East at Dover International Speedway in Dover, Delaware, on May 14, 2021. (Craig Hudson/ARCA Racing)

Ty Gibbs cleans up special awards at Dover

www.arcaracing.com May 18, 2021

The General Tire 125 represented a new race at a new track in a new series for young phenom Ty Gibbs, yet he managed to put up the same old dominating result. In a sequel to his pristine performance at Kansas Speedway in the ARCA Menards Series’ most recent race, the Dutch Boy 150, Gibbs took the teams of the ARCA Menards Series East to school at Dover by once again leading every lap from the pole while cleaning up in the special awards categories.

Ty Gibbs, driver of the #18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota, poses for a photo after winning the pole award of the last practice/qualifying of the General Tire 125 for the ARCA Menards Series East at Dover International Speedway in Dover, Delaware, on May 14, 2021. (Craig Hudson/ARCA Racing)
Ty Gibbs won the General Tire Pole Award for the General Tire 125 for the ARCA Menards Series East at Dover International Speedway. (Craig Hudson/ARCA Racing)

An early warning should have sounded for the rest of the field when Gibbs paced General Tire Pole Qualifying with a best lap speed of 155.387 mph, nearly four miles per hour quicker than outside polesitter Joey Iest as well as his own pole-winning speed from this race a year ago. Gibbs represented the fourth different General Tire Pole Award winner in as many AMSE races in 2021, joining Mason Mingus (Nashville Fairgrounds), teammate Sammy Smith (Five Flags) and Taylor Gray (New Smyrna) in that category.

One driver who didn’t fare nearly as well as Gibbs did in the qualifying session was Daniel Dye, who was forced into a backup car after a hard hit against the outside wall. Dye was gridded well behind Gibbs as a result, starting in 15th place, but he worked his way up to sixth by the checkered flag and became the K&N Filters Hard Charger for the afternoon.

Though eventual second-place finisher Josh Berry, driving for veteran crew chief Bruce Cook’s team in the opening leg of a busy triple-duty weekend, provided a worthy challenge for Ty Gibbs and even pulled ahead of the No. 18 Toyota at times, Gibbs ultimately was ahead at the line for all 125 laps run on Friday afternoon and was the one and only candidate for the Valvoline Lap Leader award at Dover.

Gibbs was the Richmond Water Heaters Halfway Leader as well, joining Sammy Smith and Taylor Gray as the three AMSE halfway leaders of the 2021 season. Gray was the halfway leader in each of the first two races at New Smyrna and Five Flags, while Smith was the halfway leader at Nashville.

Gibbs also slots in the second position on the yearlong Valvoline lap leader standings after just one start. The top spot continues to be occupied by Joe Gibbs Racing teammate and overall AMSE championship leader Sammy Smith with 326 laps led in four races.

Smith never led as he was preoccupied with recovering from a two-lap deficit that was the result of an early flat tire, putting together a strong rally to finish fourth despite being shut out of the laps-led column for the first time this year. The comeback did net Smith the Bounty Rookie of the Race prize for the third consecutive race, finishing just off of a podium flush with previous Bounty Rookie of the Year honorees: race winner Ty Gibbs was the AMSE top rookie last year, and third-place finisher David Gilliland was the rookie of the year in ARCA Menards Series West competition in 2004 – the same year that Smith was born.

Behind Sammy Smith in the rookie standings is a new face in second place in the form of Max Gutierrez. The New Smyrna winner leapfrogged Joey Iest to regain the position, edging Iest by a margin of 154-153 points. Gutierrez is still 14 points behind Smith’s leading total of 168 points.

For the third consecutive AMSE race, the fans on the official ARCA Twitter account voted Rajah Caruth as the driver that made the Reese’s Sweet Move of the Race. Once again, Caruth found himself right behind a wreck as it was unfolding and somehow managed to cleanly weave his way out of it, this time narrowly dodging Ed Pompa as he went for a spin. Unfortunately for Caruth, he wound up the victim of a hard crash later in the race when a cut right front tire sent him into the turn 2 wall while running third.

The ARCA Menards Series East will be back in action for its final standalone event of the year at 8 p.m. ET on Saturday, June 12 at Southern National Motorsports Park in Kenly, North Carolina. The North Carolina 200 will be streamed live on NBC Sports Gold’s TrackPass subscription service while an edited version of the broadcast will air on NBCSN on Thursday, June 17 at 4 ET. Live timing & scoring will be available on the Race Center page at ARCARacing.com for all on-track activity.