NASCAR labels Ty Gibbs’s LA Clash car fire as just “an isolated incident”

The LA Clash marked Ty Gibbs's JGR No:54 team debut.


NASCAR labels Ty Gibbs’s LA Clash car fire as just “an isolated incident”

Ty Gibbs

The 2023 edition of the NASCAR Clash at the Colosuem took place on 5th February. During the practice session for the event, rookie Ty Gibbs experienced a fire inside the cockpit of his No.54 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota. Gibbs evacuated from the smokey affair relatively early, and the team made repairs in time for the race.

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This incident comes after a series of car fires that occurred over the duration of 2022. Prior incidents have predominantly occurred due to shredded rubber from the tires building up on the headers and eventually catching fire. Kevin Harvick famously had his playoff chances slashed after he suffered from a similar incident in 2022.

NASCAR eventually made several changes to combat this issue. The latest incident with Gibbs has reportedly not been caused by rubber accumulation on the header but by the recent introduction of Mufflers. “[It was a] Completely isolated incident from the fires we had in 2022. You know, obviously we ran mufflers there (at the clash). We worked closely after the incident with the team. First time at an event with the mufflers, and this installation wasn’t quite where it needed to be.” NASCAR’s Senior VP of Competition, Elton Sawyer, revealed in an interview with Motorsport.com

“We worked with the team, we got there after the incident and got it corrected. They got everything tight and where it needed to be.” Sawyer continued. Notably, Mufflers were introduced in January after a test in Phoenix. The intended purpose of the mufflers was to limit the noise produced by next-generation cars on relatively smaller tracks.

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NASCAR’s mufflers revealed to be the cause of the LA Clash incident

Ty Gibbs at the LA Clash
Ty Gibbs at the LA Clash

Gibbs became the only driver to be affected by adding the mufflers. Sawyer proceeded to highlight the positives of the incident. “The good thing was, they used the same car, the same door, the same front fenders. I think they changed the door foam and the windshield, and they were ready to go for the feature there,” Sawyer said while assessing the damages from the situation.

“You know, we had 35 of them that were in great shape and ran races and all, but we got one that was just a little bit of an outlier. We got that straight and moved forward.” Sawyer concluded. NASCAR has made it abundantly clear that Gibbs’ unfortunate practice fire was an isolated incident with no relation to the fires that have been observed in the past.

While this particular incident was caused due to a loose-fitting of a muffler, NASCAR is expected to make changes to prevent this from becoming a regular occurrence. Although the teams have been made extensively aware of the correct procedure for installing the new add-ons, the process must be fool-proof for absolute security.

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