Ty Gibbs takes majority of special awards at Milwaukee Mile

www.arcaracing.com September 1, 2021

With Sunday’s running of the Sprecher 150, the ARCA Menards Series ended a 14-year hiatus by returning to the Milwaukee Mile. With his win, Ty Gibbs ended a much shorter drought: a one-race winless streak.

Seven days after rival Corey Heim won his sixth race of 2021 at Springfield, Gibbs made it back to Victory Lane for the ninth time this year. In a manner that has become typical of Gibbs this season, he not only dominated the race, but also the special awards categories.

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Ty Gibbs
Ty Gibbs, driver of the No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota, celebrates winning the General Tire Pole Award ahead of the Sprecher 150 for the ARCA Menards Series at the Milwaukee Mile in West Allis, Wisconsin, on Aug. 29, 2021. (Patrick McDermott/ARCA Racing)

General Tire Pole Qualifying played out in a familiar fashion with Gibbs ending up on the pole for the 11th time this season. With a hot lap of 29.354 seconds/122.641 mph, Gibbs easily surpassed the previous track record set by David Ragan in 2005 by nearly 3 mph.

The front row was locked out by Joe Gibbs Racing, as the team fielded a second car for Sammy Smith for the combination event with the ARCA Menards Series East. Counting statistics towards both series, this was in turn the third pole of 2021 for Gibbs in East Series competition.

With previous poles in the combination event at Iowa, as well, as an earlier standalone date at Dover, Gibbs clinched the yearlong pole award crown for the ARCA Menards Series East with one event (Bristol) still to be run.

Gibbs had little trouble cruising to the win while leading every lap, though Reese’s Sweet Move of the Race fan vote winner Sam Mayer made a respectable charge near the end to cross the line as the runner-up. Gibbs took both the Richmond Water Heaters Halfway Leader and Valvoline Lap Leader awards for Milwaukee. Gibbs has been the halfway leader in nine AMS races and three East races in 2021, numbers that will be the top marks in both series at the end of the year.

Gibbs ran his laps led total up to 1,263 in AMS competition by going a perfect 150-for-150 at Milwaukee. He clinched the yearlong lap leader award among AMS drivers early in the Sprecher 150, as current category runner-up Heim is mathematically unable to surpass Gibbs with 405 laps led and only 600 laps remaining on the schedule.

No driver has led as many laps as Gibbs has this year since 2001, when Frank Kimmel led 1,474 laps. Kimmel accomplished the feat with a 25-race schedule, five races longer than what the 2021 season will ultimately see.

Gibbs leapfrogged Smith in the Valvoline Lap Leader standings for East races. Gibbs has led 424 laps in East races, narrowly surpassing Smith’s 396 laps led. The final East race of 2021 will be the Bush’s Beans 200 at Bristol, meaning only the two JGR young guns have chances to claim the yearlong honor.

Continuing with Gibbs’ award stockpile, he was named the Bounty Rookie of the Race among the AMS drivers in the field at Milwaukee with the victory. However, he trails Heim by 13 points in the Bounty Rookie of the Year standings, as the rookie points are calculated using race points earned for finishing position only.

For the East regulars, the Bounty Rookie of the Race was GMS Racing’s Daniel Dye, who finished third at Milwaukee behind Gibbs and Mayer. Coincidentally, Gibbs and Mayer are the two most recent Bounty Rookie of the Year recipients in the East Series. Dye is eight points back of Smith in the East Bounty Rookie of the Year standings ahead of the Bristol finale.

One of the drivers in the fight for the Bounty Rookie of the Year award in the ARCA Menards Series East a year ago was Parker Retzlaff, who ended up finishing third in the running for the award behind Gibbs and Nick Sanchez. Retzlaff at Milwaukee was returning to East competition after missing the combination race at Iowa, but his day got off to a lousy start when he was unable to turn a lap in qualifying and was forced to line up on the last row in 23rd. Thanks to the aid of a late free pass, Retzlaff worked his way up to 11th in the finishing order and took home K&N Filters Hard Charger honors for his efforts gaining 12 positions.

A battle that has been just as close as the fight for the overall championship has been the duel for the Cometic Crew Chief of the Year title between Mark McFarland and Shannon Rursch. McFarland, the crew chief for Ty Gibbs and the No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing team, was the Cometic Crew Chief of the Race at Milwaukee, and he re-took the lead from Rursch in the crew chief standings. Rursch, calling the shots for Heim and the No. 20 group from Venturini Motorsports, is now seven points behind McFarland in the standings.

The ARCA Menards Series will end a stretch of four races in just 17 days with the running of the Southern Illinois 100 under the lights at the DuQuoin State Fairgrounds on Sunday, Sept. 5. Held at night for the third time, the race will take the green flag at 9 p.m. ET on MAVTV and NBC Sports Gold’s TrackPass.

The Southern Illinois 100 will mark the final event of the CGS Imaging Four Crown in-season championship, held across four distinctly different tracks on the ARCA Menards Series schedule throughout the year and currently headed by Gibbs after sweeping all three events to date.