Gonna make me change my mind on Ty Gibbs.
NASCAR is headed to Bristol Motor Speedway this weekend, a track where the late, great Kyle Busch had so much success during his legendary career.
Busch, who suddenly passed away back on May 21, scored a total of 22 wins at the half-mile bullring, including 8 in the NASCAR Cup Series, 9 in the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series, and 5 in the Craftsman Truck Series. He also remains the only driver to have swept all three races at Bristol in a single weekend – a feat that he accomplished not once but twice, in both 2010 and 2017.
With NASCAR heading back for the first time since his death to a track where Busch dominated for so long, there are plenty of tributes planned over the weekend. And the most visible of those will come thanks to the #54 car, which will be running a throwback M&M’s car in honor of the paint scheme that Busch made famous during his time at Joe Gibbs Racing.
M&M’s left NASCAR at the end of the 2022 season, ending their longtime partnership with Joe Gibbs Racing and Busch and leaving the #18 team without a primary sponsor. The result was that Busch ended up leaving the team for RCR, and his #18 car was renumbered to the #54 car for Ty Gibbs (grandson of team owner Joe Gibbs), who brought his own sponsorship with Monster Energy (and no doubt didn’t require as big of a contract as a driver like Busch).
But at Bristol, the now-renumbered car formerly driven by Busch will once again carry the M&M’s color in honor of the NASCAR legend with a special paint scheme made up of photos from Busch’s career.
Ahead of the race weekend, JGR shared an emotional video of Busch’s widow, Samantha, and their children Brexton and Lennix, getting the first look at the emotional tribute:
@joe.gibbs.racing The M&M’S Kyle Busch tribute car is complete and ready for Bristol. Samantha, Brexton, and Lennix got a chance to see it first, and explore the many great photos featured within the design.
And after getting look at the car, Samantha Busch shared her own appreciation for the support her family has received from everybody at Joe Gibbs Racing since Kyle’s death – and shared the special bond that her son Brexton has developed with Ty Gibbs.
Of course the Joe Gibbs Racing family is no stranger to heartbreak: Coy Gibbs, who was the team’s co-owner along with his father Joe Gibbs, passed away suddenly in 2022, the night after his son Ty won the then-Xfinity Series championship. Since his death, his wife Heather has stepped in to serve as president of JGR, and Samantha says in a since-expired Instagram story that she relied heavily on Heather’s support in the immediate aftermath of her husband’s death:
“When everything happened, I don’t know what day it was, and I was having like a lot of panic attacks and just freaking out. And somebody was like, ‘What do you need?’ And I was like, ‘Someone call Heather. Like, I need Heather right now.’
And I remember she came to the house right away, and I just thought, like, okay, she’s somebody who’s going to understand, you know? She went from the high of the high, like Ty won his championship, to the next day Coy was gone. And I felt like it was so similar—like we had the kids’ birthday parties and all of these great things, and then Coy’s gone.
And I just remember her sitting downstairs in the basement with me, and I was just crying and panicking, and she was there for me.”
But as it turns out, her son Brexton has also found support in Ty Gibbs, who Samantha says has become like a big brother to the younger Busch and able to help him out thanks to his own unfortunate experience with losing his father:
“Ty has been – I can’t even put into words how wonderful he’s been to Brexton. He’s been like a big brother, he’s been a source of comfort for him.
I mean, you know, Ty’s still young himself, and he has come over, he’s taken Brexton to lunch, he’s rode carts around our neighborhood with him, he came and picked him up and took him to breakfast and took him to the track to race carts, and I just… like, NASCAR is family, you know?
Ty knows what it’s like. It’s kind of funny, Coy and Kyle were so similar. They were just blunt, shoot you straight, you know, and just, gosh, like I think for Brexton to have Ty, to understand exactly like what he’s going through… You know, he came home one day from hanging out with Ty and he was like, ‘We talked about our dads.’ And he just comes home so much happier.”
Of course Ty Gibbs has been a polarizing figure himself in NASCAR: Last year, even his teammate Denny Hamlin criticized the younger Gibbs and implied over the radio that the team was afraid to reprimand him for mistakes he was making on the track.
This year Gibbs finally scored his first Cup Series win and made the postseason Chase for the first time, while also scoring a second win a few weeks ago at Iowa. But he’s also continued to draw questions about his maturity, not only for his decisions on the track but for his comments to the media (and sometimes refusal to even address the media at all).
It seems, though, that Gibbs has stepped up to help support the younger Busch as he navigates life without his father – which might help Gibbs win over fans more than anything he does on the track.
