Dale Earnhardt Jr Fans the Flames With Wild Theory About Ty Gibbs’ Pit Road Behavior

It’s that time in NASCAR again – when a driver is wrapped in another controversy. Ty Gibbs has been a force to contend with for the past few Cup Series races. Since Michigan, he has not finished worse than 14th, being a solid threat to road course racing star Shane Van Gisbergen in Mexico City and Chicago. In Sonoma, Gibbs tried his best, but in the process, wound up in trouble. Presently, Dale Earnhardt Jr dropped his own opinion about Gibbs’ fiasco.

While entering pit road as the lead car on lap 52, Ty Gibbs hit Brad Keselowski’s tire changer. That sparked massive chaos between the No. 54 Toyota and the No. 6 Ford teams. The intentions behind the incident are what raised some eyebrows, and Dale Jr has a particularly unique interpretation of it.

Dale Jr thinks it was a message

In the world of baseball, the brushback pitch is a vintage practice. It is not the same as a bean ball, which is actually meant to hit an opposite team’s player, but it intimidates them. Many famous MLB players have used this technique, like Tom Glavine and Greg Maddux. Ty Gibbs’ actions on Sunday seemed eerily similar to this practice. Chris Buescher, another RFK Racing driver, bumped Gibbs’ car shortly before the end of Stage 2. It was the pit stop immediately after that where the controversial incident unfolded. As Gibbs drove by, the No. 6 team’s tire changer, Telvin McClurkin, claimed that Gibbs hit his hands and twisted his wrist. He initiated a physical brawl on pit road soon after. NASCAR broke it up and also absolved Gibbs of any wrongdoing.

However, Dale Jr recently dissected the situation a little deeply. He referred to the ‘brushback pitch’ practice, drawing from a fan’s comment. “I saw this comment on social media, a guy named Jerry, I believe. He said that this was akin to the ‘brushback’ pitch in baseball, where you’ll throw high and inside and get the batter to back up off the plate. Or maybe something happened in the game; there was some contact. Or a bad pitch from the previous inning that p—ed everybody off on that team. The pitcher from the other team goes in and gets one in there, tight. Against the batter, it’s like a message, right? I would say, if anything, that’s what this is.” Even if that was the case, Ty Gibbs’ actions were highly questionable.

That is because Ty Gibbs has a history of causing trouble on pit road. In a 2022 Cup race in Texas, he broadsided a rival’s car, being aggressive in front of RFK Racing crew members. That landed him a $75,000 penalty. Hence, Dale Jr said that he should be penalized if there is proof. “If you could prove it to be intentional, he should be penalized because you can’t use your race car in a danger situation around bodies on pit road, right…And he’s got a little bit of a history here. I think he’s been penalized before for some things on pit road.” Yet Dale Jr added, “But how do you prove it to be intentional? That’s the question, so we can’t prove it, unless he admits it.”

Like Dale Jr’s last comment, other veterans dialed down their opinions. They did not see much of a wrongdoing on Ty Gibbs’ part.

Unlike Dale Jr, Kyle Petty has no issue with Ty’s actions

Initially, the speculation about Ty Gibbs retaliating for Chris Buescher’s actions did not fit with Dale Jr’s logic. He took his own example, “When I got p—ed off at a driver, I didn’t start taking it out on his teammates if I couldn’t reach him or couldn’t somehow affect his race or get him back. It never crosses your mind to go ‘Well, I’ll f–k his teammate over, that’ll show him.’ I just can’t believe that Ty Gibbs, his mind went there, because I don’t think it did.” NASCAR reviewed the controversy and let off Ty Gibbs with good reason. Drivers are allowed to go through up to three pit boxes when entering their own, and in this case, Gibbs was within his rights to cut across Brad Keselowski’s pit box.

Kyle Petty is a 9-time Cup Series race winner, but before he won races, he was a tire changer. He used to be on the team of his father, 200-time Cup race winner Richard Petty, and he accurately knows what a tire changer needs to do. “I got hit multiple times in my career as a tire carrier. And finally, (Richard Petty’s crew chief Dale) Inman told me, ‘Hey, that driver’s focused on his box. He’s focused on that sign. You stay out of his way.’ And that’s what it kind of boils down to sometimes. It was my job to stay out of that guy’s way.” So Petty clearly said, “No, I don’t have an issue with what Ty did.”

Clearly, there are mixed opinions about what Ty Gibbs wrought in Sonoma last Sunday. Dale Jr himself took a calculated stance on the dilemma, which soured relations between Gibbs and RFK Racing.