Chris Gabehart sheds light on radio exchange with Ty Gibbs: 'Of course it's heated'

Yahoo

2 days ago

WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. — A hot day at Watkins Glen International got even hotter on the radio of the No. 54 Joe Gibbs Racing team's radio during the final stage of Sunday's NASCAR Cup Series race.
Struggling to find rear grip with 34 laps remaining, Ty Gibbs expressed his frustration to his team.
'We're [expletive] right now, so we've got to do something different,' Gibbs said.
Chris Gabehart, competition director of Joe Gibbs Racing and race strategist for the No. 54 team, did not appreciate the tone of Gibbs' assessment.
'Well, I'm sure you've got a real good understanding of that from inside the car,' Gabehart said, 'so you can call the strategy if you want or we can keep rolling. But I (would) do the best I could to go as fast as I can.'
'10-4!' Gibbs replied.
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Ultimately, an up-and-down day for the No. 54 team ended with a 33rd-place result, Gibbs' worst result since Circuit of The Americas in March and his third consecutive finish outside the top 20. Gabehart is a veteran crew chief despite stepping back from that role in 2025, serving as the shot-caller on the No. 11 pit box with driver Denny Hamlin from 2019-2024, collecting 22 wins together. Sunday, he said, was simply another growing moment for the 22-year-old Gibbs.
'Of course, it's heated. It's a hot day, and the driver's working his butt off in there and doesn't know the details of who's on what for strategy,' Gabehart said. 'There was a caution that fell there early in Stage 2 that really split the field a lot of different ways. So for drivers, that's always the most confusing time because they don't know how to measure their car against whom and what's the next play in the playbook.
'And on the pit box, you're working to figure all that out as those cautions fall. There's only so much prep work that you can do prior to when it happens. Now, what do we do? And that's the moment that was going on there.'
Gibbs was also at a disadvantage after needing to work hard to re-pass the No. 60 of Ryan Preece before a Christopher Bell pass on Alex Bowman forced Gibbs to check up as well. Gibbs spent significant time trying to work by Bowman, Gabehart said, contributing to the lack of grip left in Gibbs' rear tires.
'This is a very difficult race to follow, even for the most experienced drivers,' Gabehart said. 'The strategy just changes so much, and Ty is still trying to work through some of these nuances. So that's racing.'
Their final pit stop of the day came at Lap 81, after Gibbs bargained an idea of his own: 'How about we just pit then just stay out when the caution comes out? If not, then we're already back here anyway.'
Gabehart obliged, bringing the No. 54 car in for four fresh tires in a gamble that didn't pay off without a yellow flag.
'We talked it over and he was losing the rear tires pretty fast both runs,' Gabehart explained. 'So once we got that late, he came on said, 'Well, what if we pit here? What's it really gonna cost us?' I'm like, 'Not much. Let's go ahead and pit in case the caution comes out, then we'll stay out and try to restart further forward for it.' There just wasn't much track position left to lose at that point.'
Gibbs' season has had its fair share of hot-and-cold swings. After finishing third at Michigan, Gibbs went on a three-race run of top-15 finishes from 11th (Mexico City), 14th (Pocono) and 14th (EchoPark Speedway). The next three races that followed were all top 10s — second in Chicago, seventh at Sonoma and fifth at Dover. The latest trio of tracks haven't been as kind with two 21st-place runs (Indianapolis, Iowa) before Sunday's 33rd-place finish.
Part of what Gabehart tries to bring is a sense of balance, particularly in unique scenarios like Watkins Glen provided when the driver may be less informed than the crew on the pit box.
'It's our job up top to try to rein that in when needed, or give enough information to be pertinent, but not so much that it's confusing all those things,' Gabehart said. 'And Ty is different than Denny is different than Chase Briscoe is different than Bell. They're all different, right? So you've got to figure out how to get the most of them out of those moments, and today, I don't think we did.'