Ty Gibbs has barely finished celebrating his second career Cup win at Iowa, and the attention has shifted to what happened in the post-race conference. The Joe Gibbs’ grandson’s winning presser lasted just seven minutes, and the moderator had to ask if there were any additional questions just five minutes into the session.
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Motorsports reporter Cole Cusumano tweeted on X, writing, “He made it BLATANTLY CLEAR he did not want to be there between body language and responses to questions.”
The questions included his aggressive two-tire pit strategy, how he has matured as a driver compared to last season, and how his overall confidence and team chemistry are holding up as the Chase approaches.
As for the tire strategy, Tyler Allen made the two-tire call for Gibbs on Lap 290, which helped Gibbs leapfrog ahead of Christopher Bell. Nonetheless, the questions Gibbs was asked were nothing new and mostly typical. Gibbs also replied at length to some, but he mostly kept it straightforward.
Gibbs’ personality has always been a topic of discussion among fans and even teammates. Last year, Denny Hamlin intentional spun him at New Hampshire after side-by-side battle. Hamlin was racing for championship, while Ty was making his job tough.
But something’s changed this year. Not just with how Ty’s performing on the track, but how fans see him. Rather than piling on the usual criticism he gets, the NASCAR fanbase actually stepped up to defend him on this issue.
About Cusumano’s tweet on Gibbs’ behavior and the short press conference, one fan said, “So what? He drove the race and won. He probably has some…appearance every single day of the week and multiple flights until the next race.”
Most of the responses by the fans had one thing in common. They all blamed the media instead for asking the same old questions like they always do:
“How about press ask an actual question. Not the standard, Ty can you talk about your race? Thats not a question, and its asked by every media member and pit road reporters,” said one, while another said,
“Oh no he didn’t want to sit and give the same generic answers to the same generic questions. The pressers are usually boring and everyone just wants to go home.”
Even those who weren’t exactly Gibbs fans, they too empathized with him here and turned the tables on the media:
“I’m not a Ty Gibbs fan, I’m not defending him, but there’s really only so many ways you can answer basically the same questions. Car was good. Team was good. I’m happy. Thank you sponsors. I mean, that’s about it, right?”
Interestingly, one fan even brought up the late legend Kyle Busch and argued that both Gibbs and Busch had similar personas, but the surrounding perception was totally the opposite: “Kyle Busch used to act like this all the time and he was praised for it.”