Pit Crew Challenge results from North Wilkesboro: Ty Gibbs in P1 for NASCAR All-Star Open

When the final car came and went, and the 54 pit crew realized that they had the fastest pit stop, the team celebrated like they’d just won the whole thing.

There were big smiles.

Group hugs.

A reflective post-event interview from Derrell Edwards, the 54 team’s jackman: “This team has been through so much, man.”

As a result of the 54 team’s production on Friday evening — a 13.021 four-tire pit stop that was 0.29 seconds better than the second best team — Ty Gibbs will sit on the pole for the All-Star Open. That gives him a leg-up in the Open; the top three drivers in the Open get to make it into Sunday’s All-Star Race. (The win also delivers the team a $100,000 bonus.)

Daniel Suarez finished second in the Pit Crew Challenge. That means he will start in P1 for one of the two All-Star Race heats that will take place on Saturday. (The heats will ultimately set the All-Star Race’s starting lineup.)

Chris Buescher finished third.

“It was pretty cool, ya know?” Gibbs told reporters after his team’s triumph. “It would’ve been a little nicer if that locked us into Sunday’s night race. But we’ll race (in the Open), and I feel like we got a great car, so we just gotta get through this next one to go have a shot for a million bucks.”

All implications of what this means for Sunday aside, there was no denying that Friday’s event was quite cool: It thrust the overlooked but invaluable guys — the offensive line of a race team, so to speak — into the spotlight. Fans flooded the front stretch, many of them standing right up next to the fence to get the best view.

Pit lane is where races can’t be won, but can be lost. And pit stops are the most thrilling moments of any 400-mile race: Their highs and lows are measured in tenths of seconds. They’re the sprints sprinkled into the marathons.

There’s no denying that they matter, in other words.

And winning the event mattered to the 54 team, too.

“These guys put in so much work that people don’t see,” said Joe Gibbs Racing pit crew coach Brian Haaland. “And most of the time when things go wrong, it gets highlighted. So it’s nice that they were able to perform in a really intense environment out there against all of their peers and run the fastest pit stop. Ty doing a fantastic job getting the car exactly where we needed, and then (crew chief) Chris (Gayle), with his mechanics, maybe giving us a little help on the set-up, and it was a lot of extra work for those guys. So it was a complete team effort today.”

Full results from the Pit Crew Challenge are below.

Results from Pit Crew Challenge

Alex Zietlow

The Charlotte Observer

Alex Zietlow writes about the Carolina Panthers and the ways in which sports intersect with life for The Charlotte Observer, where he has been a reporter since August 2022. Zietlow’s work has been honored by the Pro Football Writers Association, the N.C. and S.C. Press Associations, as well as the Associated Press Sports Editors (APSE) group. He’s earned six APSE Top 10 distinctions for his coverage on a variety of topics, from billion-dollar stadium renovations to the small moments of triumph that helped a Panthers kicker defy the steepest odds in sports. Zietlow previously wrote for The Herald in Rock Hill (S.C.) from 2019-22. Support my work with a digital subscription