It took Ty Gibbs a hard and long-fought battle to win his first Cup Series race, despite competing with one of the most competitive teams on the field. But after a series of largely improved competitive performances, Gibbs finally got over the line at Bristol. While it was an emotional win for him and his family, a former driver has chimed in on what led to the first win taking so long, and his assessment is that Gibbs might have been a little distracted previously.

Kyle Petty looks back on Ty Gibbs’ race win

“I think Ty lost his way a little bit, and he’s focused back on where he was last year. And, I don’t think it’s a surprise that we see him in victory lane,” Kyle Petty mentioned, as he discussed the lack of consistency that Gibbs had shown in the past few seasons.

After winning the 2022 Xfinity Series Championship, Gibbs made his full-time Cup Series debut with his grandfather’s team. While he did not immediately pull off impressive results, the expectation was that he would start doing well in a couple of seasons. However, when his poor form ran beyond that, criticism started to increase. He was largely inconsistent, with only a few top-five finishes at best, alternatively followed by finishes out of the top 20.

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The start of the 2026 season was similar; however, Ty Gibbs pulled off something really impressive. He hasn’t finished out of the top 6 since COTA, and with that race win at Bristol, he sealed a strong place on the field. But even with the win, Kyle Petty is surprised by another aspect.

“It is a little bit of a surprise to me that he’s in victory lane before Briscoe and Bell from that team because I really thought those guys would have, especially the way Toyota is running this year,” said Petty.

Toyota has won six races so far this season, with Tyler Reddick bringing in four of them. While this is not the first time a Joe Gibbs Racing car has won a race, Ty Gibbs is only the second driver from the team to win a race after Denny Hamlin’s impressive performance at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

While this race win was rather complicated for Ty Gibbs to achieve, no one has witnessed it better than his grandfather. He has been backing Ty’s career from the early stages, and despite all the talk, he backed his ability as a racer.

Joe Gibbs on his grandson’s Cup progress

It has been quite a drive, not just for Ty Gibbs but the whole #54 team through the years. Joe Gibbs, his grandfather, speaking to the media after the race, revealed just how difficult the journey had been for him to win this race.

“Ty to be able to go through everything that he went through. He went through a lot because this is tough. This is tough when you get up here. It’s the best of the best in the world,” he said.

The Cup Series is a whole different level of competition. So while Ty Gibbs managed to dominate the ARCA Menards Series and win the Xfinity (now the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series) championship on the first try, moving to drive a Cup car was a massive upgrade.

Moreover, one has to also consider the lack of experience he had in the NOAPS. Sure, he did win the title in 2022 itself, but that still did not give him enough experience to move to the Cup Series. For the three full-time seasons he spent without a race win, it seemed as if Ty Gibbs was grasping that experience which he should’ve had from the NOAPS itself.

But at the end of the day, it proved to be rather fruitful, as he now seems massively improved and ready to win more races. This was especially impressive, considering he didn’t win the race by pure luck. Gibbs also had to battle Ryan Blaney on the final restart and managed to keep him behind. So while he might have been a bit distracted last year, as Kyle Petty noted, Ty Gibbs has finally clinched a race win.