After overcoming the noise all week following events at Martinsville Speedway, Ty Gibbs battled through the adversity and won Saturday evening’s Xfinity Series season finale at Phoenix Raceway. The win netted the 20-year-old his first Xfinity Series championship, holding off the JR Motorsports cars of Noah Gragson and Justin Allgaier in the closing laps.
RELATED: Unofficial results | More on Gibbs’ title win
Gibbs is the fourth-youngest champion in the series, joining the likes of William Byron and Chase Elliott, who both won Xfinity championships as teenagers.
It came down to the final pit stop of the race with just over 40 laps to go. The Championship 4 drivers all came down pit road to top off on fuel and fresh tires. Gibbs was the first to get away followed by Justin Allgaier. With issues on the right-rear tire and left-front tire, the No. 9 team was stuck on pit road for over 18 seconds, parachuting back to eighth.
Gragson worked his way back to second and fought tooth and nail to catch Gibbs in the closing laps but came 0.397 seconds short of taking the title and his ninth win of 2022. Saturday night marked the final Xfinity race for Gragson as he will jump to the Cup Series, teaming with Petty GMS in the No. 42 Chevrolet.
Josh Berry, who ran in the top five with his fellow Championship 4 competitors for most of the race, took himself out of the bid for the title after running wide on the final restart. The No. 8 JRM Chevrolet then hit the wall off Turn 2 and fell all the way outside the top 20. Berry went on to finish 13th.
Allgaier finished third, followed by a pair of Kaulig Racing cars in Landon Cassill and AJ Allmendinger.
Sheldon Creed, Riley Herbst, Daniel Hemric, Austin Hill and Sammy Smith rounded out the top 10. Smith rebounded in his No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota after being involved in two early incidents.
The Xfinity Series will pick back up in 2023 with the season opener at Daytona International Speedway on Feb. 18.
This story will be updated.