Ty Gibbs was already not a very admired figure amongst the NASCAR faithful. But when he got into an altercation with Sam Mayer after the race at Martinsville, punching him in the face while he had his helmet on, Gibbs became the marked man for the fans.

This reputation wasn’t helped by NASCAR either after they handed the Joe Gibbs Racing driver a penalty of $15,000 for the incident.

And too wasn’t for the fight, but for making contact with another car on the pit road.

This left NASCAR fans with a sour taste in their mouth. They argued why the penalty was unfair and simply not enough on many levels.

Some poked fun at the amount that Gibbs was being penalized for, calling it his “allowance” while some seriously questioned why the championship-leading driver wasn’t stripped off of points or given further, more serious sanctions in line with his actions.

Ty Gibbs has put himself “in that reputation” according to Sam Mayer

In a post-race interview, Sam Mayer spoke about the brawl with Ty Gibbs at Martinsville. “Yeah, I mean, 100 grand on the line, put the bumper to him because that’s what short track racing is all about and he got upset,” he said.

“He threw a couple punches but they were weak, so I can’t say much about that, it’s kinda funny.”

The JR Motorsports driver said he doesn’t understand how this could’ve been one-sided since Gibbs does the same thing every week, only this he was on the wrong side of it.

“I’m going to go out there and do my best and he can do whatever he wants,” Mayer continued.

“At the end of the day, anyone can do whatever they want to him because he’s put himself in that reputation so it doesn’t matter.”

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