By the end of the day Saturday, the scene in Victory Lane at Charlotte Motor Speedway had become familiar: Ty Gibbs celebrating yet another race win with his Joe Gibbs Racing team.
The NASCAR Xfinity Series field at Charlotte faced the same wrath that Gibbs’ ARCA Menards Series contemporaries have endured in recent weeks, as Gibbs pulled off an unprecedented Charlotte sweep by taking wins in both the Alsco Uniforms 300 and the General Tire 150 only hours apart.
Once again, the remainder of the ARCA Menards Series field could only fight for scraps when it came to the series’ special awards.
RELATED: What We Learned at Charlotte
General Tire Pole qualifying was hardly a competition, as Gibbs posted the fastest lap in the joint practice/qualifying session at 29.952 seconds/180.288 mph. His time was well over a half a second better than that of outside polesitter Parker Chase, who put up an impressive qualifying lap in his oval debut in a full-bodied stock car.
Gibbs has now started first in the last five ARCA Menards Series races.
Gibbs led every lap for the second time in the last three ARCA Menards Series races and easily won both the Valvoline Lap Leader and Richmond Water Heaters Halfway Leader awards.
In the yearlong Valvoline Lap Leader standings, the Gibbs show continues thanks to his leading 490 of a possible 708 laps so far in 2021. Corey Heim and Drew Dollar round out the podium at great distance, leading 91 and 51 laps, respectively, in 2021.
Gibbs was the Bounty Rookie of the Race with the win, though his crash at Talladega continues to haunt him, as Heim still holds a 24-point lead in the Bounty Rookie of the Year standings. Nick Sanchez sits third, 61 points behind the top spot.
Mark McFarland won the Cometic Crew Chief of the Race award for directing Gibbs’ win from the pole atop the pit box, though he sits third in the Cometic Crew Chief of the Year standings. The yearlong standings are paced by Shannon Rursch, crew chief for Heim’s No. 20 Venturini Motorsports Toyota, while fellow VMS crew chief Billy Venturini slots in second.
Venturini does lead in one category: the General Tire Superspeedway Challenge for individual car owners. He is locked in an intra-family battle for first with his father Bill Venturini. Billy’s No. 20 Toyota has accumulated 169 points through four superspeedway races, while Bill’s No. 15 Toyota lurks with 165 points.
The Superspeedway Challenge reached the crossed flags with Charlotte’s General Tire 150. The back half of the superspeedway schedule will see a visit to Pocono Raceway on June 25 before concluding with races at Michigan International Speedway in August and Kansas Speedway in October.
There was significant action behind Gibbs throughout the rest of the field in the General Tire 150. Heim was mired near mid-pack for much of the race, but he roared to life late and finished as the runner-up after qualifying ninth, making him the K&N Filters Hard Charger at Charlotte.
The most adventurous day may have belonged to Thad Moffitt, who made the Reese’s Sweet Move of the Race when he managed to avoid a near-wreck early.
Moffitt only had so much luck, though, and he eventually brought out a caution with a solo spin on Lap 29. Moffitt recovered to finish seventh and maintain his third-place position in the championship standings.
The next race on the ARCA Menards Series schedule is the Dawn 150 at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course on Friday, June 4, the first of two scheduled road course races for the series in 2021. The Dawn 150 will go green at 6 p.m. ET and will be televised live on FS1 with radio coverage on MRN and SiriusXM.
The Dawn 150 will be the second installment of two in-season championships: the CGS Imaging Four Crown and the Sioux Chief Showdown. Gibbs leads the standings for both championships.
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