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Ty Gibbs and Joey Logano had a run-in at the Clash at the LA Coliseum on Saturday night, and the two got into a heated discussion afterward. In light of that discussion, Logano went on Sirius XM NASCAR Radio to explain his side of the story. He said that Gibbs’ words “Don’t mean nothing to me no more”, and went into further detail about the history between the two. What is the whole story between Joey Logano and Ty Gibbs?
For some reason, it seems that Joey Logano always finds himself at odds with the drivers at Joe Gibbs Racing. Which is ironic, considering he started his career at JGR.
Take any prominent Joe Gibbs Racing driver of the last decade and Logano has a spat with them somewhere along the way. There was the 2015 rivalry with Matt Kenseth, which ended in Logano being intentionally wrecked by Kenseth, causing Logano a Championship.
In 2017, Logano got into a postrace fight with the most successful JGR driver of the 2010s, Kyle Busch. Logano spun Busch out while battling for position on the last lap at Las Vegas.
Then in 2018, Logano bumped Martin Truex Jr. out of the way for the win and a Championship 4 spot at Martinsville. While Truex Jr. was not technically a JGR driver at the time, he was with an affiliate team, Furniture Row Racing. Truex Jr. was not happy with Logano after the race, but, Logano ended up getting the last laugh by winning the Championship over Truex Jr.
One year later at Martinsville, Logano got into it with Denny Hamlin. This led to Hamlin’s famous Logano impression and “Short track racing” meme.
Just for good measure, current JGR driver Christopher Bell had to beat Logano for his first career win in 2021. While that was a clean race, it’s still ironic.
Now, why does this matter to Ty Gibbs? Well, Gibbs is the grandson of team owner Joe Gibbs, who cut Logano loose in 2012. It may be a bit harsh to say that Logano has a personal vendetta against JGR, but, Gibbs joined the Cup Series with two teammates who have had run-ins with Logano.
Logano and Gibbs did not have many public spats in 2023, but, Logano alluded to the fact that the two had some run-ins in 2023. How did this stay out of the public eye? Well, Logano and Gibbs were both out of the Championship picture by the end of the Round of 16, and there was only one race win between the two all season. If they were running into each other, it was not where the focus was at the moment.
However, they did have one major public dust-up. This came at Martinsville when Logano spun Gibbs out at Martinsville in the fall. Logano admitted during that Sirius XM interview that this was to “Show [Gibbs] I’d had enough” after what Logano claimed were 3 weeks of Gibbs “Using me up”.
There was no major confrontation between the two after the race that was picked up by the cameras, but, they say that race car drivers have longer memories than elephants. Gibbs would certainly remember this, so, Logano and Gibbs talked in the offseason.
After that incident, Logano said that Gibbs both called him and went to Logano’s place to smooth things over. This was a move that Logano respected.
I can see a lot of myself in Ty. I get a lot of it, and I thought, ‘Man, if I talked to Kevin [Harvick] that way or I talked to Tony [Stewart] in that way, gosh that would’ve been great to have that.’ So I was open like I’ve been through this before, let me see if I can help the situation out. So he left and we shook hands and okay, here’s how we’re going to do it, we’re going to respect each other on the race track.
Joey Logano
Reaching out to a driver after an on-track incident is not an uncommon thing to do. It’s common courtesy for a driver to call and apologize or smooth things over. Logano saw this as an opportunity to help a younger driver out.
As we saw with Logano’s previous run-ins, he has had some dust-ups with veterans before. He has experience, so, he can teach Gibbs about how to handle these situations. Did this make a difference?
Joey Logano and Ty Gibbs both were on the front row for a restart with 10 laps to do in the Clash. On that restart, Gibbs pushed Logano up the track and out of the way, shuffling Logano out. Gibbs lost the lead as well, so, neither driver came out smelling like a rose. Logano confronted Gibbs at his hauler after the race.
This precipitated Logano to proclaim this on Sirius XM NASCAR Radio. He was not happy about how Gibbs raced him.
Where do we go from here? I don’t know. I don’t know. We had a conversation, he said all the right things, his words don’t mean nothing to me anymore, so, I’m not going to talk to him. I don’t know the next thing to do…The kid’s talented. He’s fast, I’m going to have to race him until the end of my career. He’s not getting fired, I know that, so, he’s good. I don’t know how to handle it from here. We can get in a back and forth match, I don’t really want to do that, but, I’m open to do it. I don’t know what the next step is to earn respect with the kid.
Joey Logano
Well, it seems this rivalry is not settled. Logano mentioned that he does not want to get into a “Back and forth match” with Gibbs, but Logano will do what he needs to do. From here, don’t expect Logano to cut Gibbs any breaks.
This rivalry could easily spill over into the season. Logano does not seem satisfied with the way things are, and this could boil over into something crazy.
