Fireworks at Martinsville.
Joe Gibbs Racing’s Brandon Jones took the checkered flag at last night’s Xfinity Series race at Martinsville, but it was another Joe Gibbs driver that made the most headlines.
And it was his grandson, Ty Gibbs.
Ty Gibbs was knocked out of the lead by Sam Mayer on the final lap of the second overtime restart, and once the race was over, he wanted to do some knocking of his own.
During the cool down lap, Gibbs rammed into the back of Mayer, and then when they both got out, Gibbs went to confront Mayer, giving him a shove while he was removing his helmet.
Gibbs conveniently left his on (shoutout Kevin Harvick) and eventually started throwing punches.
Here’s a look at the final lap:
And the post race scuffle:
After the race, Mayer weighed in calling his punches “weak as hell.”
“He walked over to me, he made the first move, I wasn’t gonna say anything because I didn’t do anything wrong. All I did was put the bumper to him like he’s been doing for the last couple weeks to everybody.
He threw a couple punches, that’s on him not me…I have no pain whatsoever. He can throw all the punches he wants, they’re weak as hell so it doesn’t bother me, so I didn’t feel a thing.
$100,000 grand on the line, put the bumper to him because that’s is what short track races is all about. He got upset… so whatever he threw a couple punches but they were pretty weak so can’t say much about that, it’s kind of funny.
He’s been doing that to everyone else every week so far…”
Mayer addressed the helmet issue as well:
“It’s kind of funny because he walked up to me, I had my helmet off already, and he kept his helmet on, so obviously he was scared about something or he had it in his mind to throw a punch the whole time.
That’s on him not me… I’m fine, I couldn’t care less. I’m gonna move on and race everybody just as hard.”
Weak as hell or not, they landed and Mayer walked away with a nice little gash on his left eye.
Ty Gibbs also shared his thoughts on the race, saying that Mayer wasn’t gonna win anyways:
“I tried to talk to him and he got all in my face and at that point, we’ve got to start fighting.
We got put in a bad position there. The only thing I’m mad about is the #1 didn’t have anything. He wasn’t going to get past #16 there and I just got hit in the left rear.
I was on the other side of it last week so that’s just part of it.”
Landon Cassill finished second, and AJ Allmendinger who claimed the $100,000 bonus, finished third.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. finished 11th.
