Race Weekend Central

Kurt Busch Not Cleared for Pocono Cup Race, Ty Gibbs Steps Into No. 45

Kurt Busch and NASCAR announced on Twitter that, following a hard crash in qualifying for today’s (July 24) M&M’s Fan Appreciation 400, the 2004 series champion has not been cleared to take the green flag following an evaluation this morning. 

Busch released a statement saying, “NASCAR has done a great job of putting the drivers’ health before competition and I respect the decision they have made,” citing “concussion-like symptoms” from the impact.

Stepping into the No. 45 McDonalds Toyota for 23XI Racing will be Xfinity Series points leader and 2021 ARCA Menards Series champion Ty Gibbs. The 19-year-old grandson of Cup Series team owner Joe Gibbs has won eight races in his first 35 starts in NASCAR’s second-tier series and finished runner-up in Saturday’s (July 23) Xfinity race at the Tricky Triangle. This will be his first start in NASCAR’s premier series.

Gibbs will be the youngest driver in the field when he takes the green flag just past 3 p.m. ET, as he was born in Oct. 2002.

About the author

Jack Swansey primarily covers open-wheel racing for Frontstretch and co-hosts The Pit Straight Podcast, but you can also catch him writing about NASCAR, sports cars, and anything else with four wheels and a motor. Originally from North Carolina and now residing in Los Angeles, he joined the site as Sunday news writer midway through 2022 and is an avid collector (some would say hoarder) of die-cast cars.

Sign up for the Frontstretch Newsletter

A daily email update (Monday through Friday) providing racing news, commentary, features, and information from Frontstretch.com
We hate spam. Your email address will not be sold or shared with anyone else.

5 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Carl D.

I’m sure we’ll hear about him all afternoon.

Echo

And here we go….. I think Bill is right about Busch. Look around Kyle, who’s going to pay that huge salary !

Ted

Yay,.. now we get to hear all about Ty all day! 😐🤦‍♂️🤣

Roger

He’s not as annoying as he was. I think he has received instruction regarding his attitude.

DoninAjax

He still needs to have a “talk” with Jimmy Spencer.

Share via