April 11, 2022 | By Lee Spencer

Joey Logano on Ty Gibbs and the Driver's Code

Joey Logano has raced a mile—and more—in Ty Gibbs' driving shoes. 

Logano was just a teenager himself when he carried the moniker “Sliced Bread” into NASCAR. He was brash, aggressive and brimming with talent. Time after time, Logano rubbed the competition the wrong way. 

Certainly, Logano has compassion for Gibbs, the 19-year-old grandson of NASCAR team owner and NFL Super Bowl-winning coach Joe Gibbs, and what the young driver is experiencing during his transition into the Xfinity Series. 

But Logano doesn’t condone the rage Gibbs exhibited after receiving a taste of his own medicine following Friday night’s Call 811 Before You Dig 250 at Martinsville Speedway. 

“I tell you what, I have a lot more grace for seeing that stuff after going through it myself,” Logano told RacinBoys.com on Monday. “Do I agree with the way it went down? No, I don't. Have I done that type of thing before? Yeah, I have. Am I proud of it? No, not at all. But I learned from it at least.”

Gibbs incited a post-race brawl after confronting Sam Mayer and ultimately throwing punches, with his helmet still on, when Mayer shoved him. The pair made contact on the last lap of the Xfinity race when Mayer routed Gibbs out of the way while the two drivers were battling AJ Allmendinger for a $100,000 Xfinity Dash 4 Cash bonus. Gibbs retaliated by plowing into Mayer’s car on the cool-down lap. The post-race fight completely overshadowed the win by Gibbs’ teammate Brandon Jones.

Logano was surprised the violence escalated so quickly. He was also taken aback by Gibbs' lack of situational awareness.

“If you’re going to race a certain way, you got to expect to be raced that way back,” Logano said. “That’s the driver code that nobody can understand. That’s it. If you’re willing to push, then you’ve got to be willing to take some pushes. That’s what it comes down to. If you’re willing to push for a win, and someone is willing to push for $100,000 behind you, (it's) one for the other at that point.”

While it’s been a decade since Logano experienced similar loathing in the court of public opinion, social media has ratcheted up significantly since then. Logano has worked overtime to rehabilitate his own image—which hasn’t been easy.

“It's part of growing up on TV,” Logano added. “You’re growing up in the limelight, right? Yeah, he's a very popular driver. He's very good. He wins. He's in a great car. And he's pretty dang aggressive and I can relate to all that. And I learned a lot, I learned a lot. The unfortunate part is people don't forget, and the other unfortunate part is that everybody on this (interview) call was 18,19, 20-years-old at one time, and you guys all did something stupid at some point. You did, right? You're a kid. You did something dumb but nobody knows it right? It's forgotten about it. Everybody moves on. But there's this thing called YouTube now, where my kid can see this stuff, right? And it's like, ‘Oh no.’

“So I guess taking a deep breath and understanding the big picture and handling things correctly is probably the way to go. But we've all done dumb things. It's just as a driver, it’s just going to be out there in the open. Two younger guys, ambitious to win and I wouldn't say what happened on the racetrack was wrong, but I'd say what happened after was probably not the right direction.”