Ty Gibbs won at Bristol — yes, in the Cup race

Ty Gibbs catches a lot of flack for reasons that are rife in motorsports culture. What it comes down to is, not a lot of Cup drivers get 131 starts to prove they are capable of winning a race unless their last name is Gibbs. But Ty finally got it done this weekend, and at Bristol no less. He got it done by staying out on a tire that was well regarded. No way around it, he earned his win, and it’s not like it was a fluke this season, either. He has been running well enough the whole time that all but the most cynical considered it a matter of “when” not “if.”

Also of note in the Cup race was the return of Alex Bowman from his multi-race recuperation from vertigo. While it sounds like he was as worried as I was that he was toast, he was cleared to race and did so without incident.

The truck race was won by Christopher Bell, his first Truck Series win since 2017. Ben Rhodes could have won it; he won stage 2, and he ran at the front, but an alternator issue cost him some track position in the pits, and he ended up 11th. Corey Heim and Christian Eckes also could have won it, but they got into each other in rather spectacular fashion and wrecked. For the amount of temper that appeared to be involved, they both handled it quite maturely.

The O’Reilly race was won by Connor Zilisch — no huge surprise there — but he had to stay out to race a dominant Kyle Larson for it, which was pretty impressive. Brent Crews also showed some fight at the front, but he couldn’t get into a race of that caliber for the lead and finished 3rd. The headlines were almost stolen by a huge engine fire in Mason Maggio’s #91 Chevrolet, which filled the speedway with smoke and red-flagged the race for a bit.