LAS VEGAS — The last nine NASCAR Cup Series races for Ty Gibbs have not gone well.
Dating back to October 2024, Gibbs has finished 25th or worse in eight of the past nine events — seven of those results showing 30th or worse.
MORE: Weekend schedule | At-track photos: Las Vegas
Chris Gabehart, the newly minted competition director at Joe Gibbs Racing, knows the results are all anyone will look at — whether that is today or a decade down the road. But ahead of Sunday’s race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway (3:30 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), he also sees a significant contrast between the end of 2024 (with finishes of 35th, 30th, 36th, 32nd and 40th) with that iteration of the No. 54 team versus the new group around him in 2025 (with finishes of 16th, 32nd, 34th and 25th).
“It looks very similar to last year, but it is quite different,” Gabehart told NASCAR.com during Friday’s technical inspection. “And I need to go no further back than one weekend ago to Phoenix where they missed it. Ty was struggling. They weren’t running good, but with 15 to go, they were running 10th. That’s not what they were going to do six months ago. They weren’t made of that same moxie. They weren’t going to wake up and find that opportunity to catch a break and have a shot at a top 10.
“Now, ultimately, ‘bad luck’ bit him again. They broke the brake rotor and didn’t get the finish. But the key is they found a way to get to the end of the day with a shot to salvage their day and that is really what is foundationally important of any good team.”
Crew chief Tyler Allen has taken the reins of the No. 54 JGR Toyota in 2025, resulting from several internal JGR changes over the offseason. Former No. 54 crew chief Chris Gayle moved to replace Gabehart as the crew chief of Denny Hamlin’s No. 11 car. Allen is an experienced engineer, serving as Adam Stevens’ engineer from 2017-2023 before pivoting to the crew chief role in 2024 in the Xfinity Series. There, he won eight of 33 races with four different drivers — two each with Aric Almirola, Christopher Bell, John Hunter Nemechek and Ryan Truex.
His transition to the Cup Series has been a learning experience made more complex by the addition of a new front mechanic, a new rear mechanic and two engineers that Allen described as “green.” Additionally, car chief Ryan Towles was a front mechanic in 2024 before his ascension in 2025.
“A lot of change,” Allen told NASCAR.com in a Wednesday phone interview. “Especially through these first four (races), we’re kind of feeling it. But as we get in a rhythm and everyone settles into their roles and get the roster sorted out how we need to have it, I envision it working very smoothly. But there’s hiccups along the way, as you would expect with such a new group. So that’s kind of why I’m looking forward to getting a little deeper into the season and getting into a rhythm with these guys.”
What Allen and Gabehart have both seen — and commended — is Gibbs’ demeanor amid consistent adversity. In the Daytona 500, Gibbs was 10th on the final lap before collecting damage in the last-lap melee but still crossed the line 16th for his best finish since Oct. 6 at Talladega Superspeedway (13th). Atlanta resulted in a crash as he dove for a three-wide hole down the frontstretch, wrecking out. Circuit of The Americas brought first-lap damage as his car climbed Hamlin’s in Turn 1, and his Phoenix effort was cut short by a failed brake rotor. Nonetheless, Gibbs has responded appropriately to the tasks at hand, according to the leaders around his team.
“Honestly, it’s been great,” Allen said. “I feel like we’re working together really well, communicating well. We have meetings post-race on Mondays and obviously, we’re both disappointed in the results, but I think we’ve both done a good job of looking at the positives from the weekend and the things that we could control and what we did well versus the things we couldn’t control. So his attitude’s been great.
“He’s a fierce competitor and wants to win just like me. But you know, the Cup Series is hard, and you’ve got to focus on all the details. So I think if you asked both of us, we feel like things are going to turn around. No negativity. Disappointed in the results, but we’re both ready to go have some good results.”
As the competition director and only months removed from the No. 11 team’s pit box, Gabehart can provide “broad-stroke generalizations” to help Allen through his rookie year as a crew chief while also contributing to the success of the teams of Bell, Hamlin and newcomer Chase Briscoe. His approach to the No. 54 team specifically is to provide the big-picture thought process and accelerate learning curves. What he’s seen through Gibbs is an apparent shift in mindset.
“While I wasn’t in this role last year, it was evident that he (Gibbs) wasn’t responding the way he did just last week,” Gabehart said. “But really, last week is how he’s been the entire time. I don’t expect anyone to like the results. He definitely doesn’t like it, but he responds in a professional manner of: ‘It’s part of it. We just got to keep digging.’ And it’s really been a lot of work by a lot of people to help turn that corner for him, but none bigger than himself and just maturing into understanding the pressures of the Cup season’s schedule.”
Bell — NASCAR’s hottest driver on the heels of three consecutive Cup wins, on the verge of four straight, and Gibbs’ teammate — can attest both to Gibbs’ maturation and how difficult adapting to life at the Cup level can be.
“It’s been interesting following along with his Cup career,” Bell said. “And last year, he started off really strong, and I think he was in the top five in points after the first couple of races and was contending for wins, leading laps. And then it did seem like whenever the spring ended and summer came along, they just started kind of falling apart for him. And it’s really easy to get down on yourself and start to allow these negative weeks to impact the future weeks.
“And it seems like he’s been able to turn that around to where, even if things don’t go right, whether it was last week or early on in the race, he’s able to rebound from it and put himself in position to have a good finish and a good week. So I think it just comes with time. And I struggled with that exact same thing throughout the early part of my Cup career.”
The long runaway ahead of Gibbs is Gabehart’s current focus. Though 2024 was a career year for Gibbs with eight top fives and 12 top 10s, it was also just his second full-time season. Las Vegas will mark the 92nd race of Gibbs’ Cup tenure — a good plenty to be sure, but yet early in his still-blossoming career.
“The reality is, with a 22-year-old Ty Gibbs, while you want to win today and you want to be the point leader today, that’s really not what it’s about for him and this team,” Gabehart said. “Him and Tyler Allen and this team can be together for a decade-plus of success easily. And you don’t have to look any further back than last year’s champion Joey Logano to understand, if you zoom out enough, what it’s really about — and that is building the foundation of a championship team. And Tyler and Ty definitely have the performance capability of being that.
“So I really choose not to look at the 54 that way. Some people might — even within our walls — but I think that’s too shortsighted. I think we have to realize that, as a 22-year-old driver, this is about a long-term project, not a short one.”
MORE: Memorable 1-2 finishes for JGR
Perhaps Vegas is where Gibbs and rekindle some familiar spring success. One year ago, Gibbs finished fifth at the 1.5-mile oval, his first of those eight top fives in 2024.
“He did great at Vegas in both events last year (and) showed a lot of speed,” Allen said. “JGR as a whole did, so I feel really confident going to a place like Las Vegas.”
Gabehart shares that enthusiasm and believes this is the track where Gibbs can curb his results-based slide.
“That team can run top 10 any week. I expect this week will actually be a week that will get us started and start getting that monkey off your back, so to speak,” Gabehart said. “And at that point, I really do think the wins are around the corner. They’ve got to get back into the groove of understanding and believing that they can do it. A nice top-10 finish or two will do that. But their capability is certainly high enough that any given week, it wouldn’t surprise me — at that point, once they get that confidence back — that they could win.”