NASCAR Cup Series star Ty Gibbs was the recipient of more than a few heated words from a rival driver on Sunday at Texas.
Gibbs was, notably, the subject of Ryan Preece's ire well before his race ended in dramatic fashion in a Stage 2 wreck at the mile-and-a-half oval.
The driver of the No. 54 Joe Gibbs Racing car got an indirect warning from Preece before his wreck after 110 laps, with the No. 60 car driver saying over his radio: "Alright, when I get to that 54 I'm done with him."
It's still not entirely clear whether Preece actually made contact when the two met on the track some laps later, with replays simply showing that the pair were line astern when Gibbs veered into the outside wall.
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Preece vents over Gibbs thoughts
Preece's earlier rant – self-described – was: "Alright when I get to that 54 I'm done with him. F***ing idiot. That car is so f***ing fast, p***es me off. I’m gonna vent for 15 seconds. I can't stand when idiots like him have fast race cars where they can do stupid s*** and get away with it. End of rant."
The RFK driver told Frontstretch after the race: "I’ll be honest with you. I hate that he wrecked, but decisions you make on the race track, there are repercussions. And I try to race everybody with an amount of respect that I’d like in return.
"And when you don’t do that, I’m not gonna cut you a break. And that’s what happened."
Gibbs jumped on social media after the wreck to repost a transcript of Preece's earlier message, adding: "Hmm, at least he is honest."
When asked for his assessment of the incident by media after the race he prevaricated somewhat, saying: "I haven’t seen the replay. It broke one of the little welds on the front clip, so it probably wasn’t the best decision to go back out. We weren’t going to be fast, so we’ll go racing next week."
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