Ty Gibbs’ team wins All-Star Pit Crew Challenge

Ty Gibbs would not be born for another six years when North Wilkesboro Speedway held its final NASCAR Cup Series race. While it was not for a traditional race, Gibbs ended up the first Cup driver to stand in the track’s Victory Lane since 1996 when he and his #54 Joe Gibbs Racing crew won the Pit Crew Challenge, which will place him on the pole for Sunday’s NASCAR All-Star Open.

Gibbs’ team recorded a four-tyre stop in 13.012 seconds, beating Daniel Suárez by less than three-tenths of a second. Via his 2022 Sonoma win, Suárez is already qualified for the NASCAR All-Star Race on Sunday and being the best locked-in car means he will start on the pole for Saturday’s first heat race. As Gibbs has yet to win in the Cup Series, he needs to finish in the top two in the Open or win the Fan Vote to make the All-Star.

By finishing third in the Pit Crew Challenge, Chris Buescher starts first for Heat #2.

“We put in a whole lot of work in the other choreography,” said Gibbs’ pit crew coach Brian Haaland. “When it hit perfect, it is still the fastest way to do a pit stop, but the reality of it is when you get to pit road, there is a lot of different obstacles that take place, and everything has to be perfect for you to be able to run as fast as that stop is capable of. I think we also had to take a look in the mirror and say fundamentally, we are not as good as we need to be, so taking a step back and running this traditional pit stop to work on getting a little bit better visually and fundamentally within the pit stop, and maybe when we start to master that on a consistent basis, it is something that we take a look at again.”

Nine drivers were busted for penalties, which added five seconds to their time for each infraction. The biggest loser was perhaps Brad Keselowski, who had a loose wheel that relegated him from second to twenty-sixth.

The Pit Crew Challenge was a fan favourite event on All-Star weekend that ran from 1967 (eighteen years before the first All-Star Race) through 2012. Unlike the 2023 version, the predecessor did not impact the All-Star starting lineup.

Twenty-one drivers are already locked into the All-Star Race.

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