Last weekend at the Sonoma Raceway, one of the big stories was a feud between two teams. The parties in question were Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing and Joe Gibbs Racing, and the former felt aggrieved. During the race, JGR’s Ty Gibbs was pitting and nearly mowed down one of Brad Keselowski’s RFK Racing crew members. Unlike a lot of other motorsports, NASCAR pit crews are relatively cramped together on pit road.
The rule is that when a car enters their pit box, they have a minimum window of three pit boxes. As it turns out, these Cup cars have a large turning circle. So they cannot turn into one single pit box properly. Additionally, pit crew members have to stay behind the pit wall until their car stops in the box. In the case of Keselowski and Gibbs, the two of them entered nose to tail, with the #54 driver ahead.
Unfortunately, both of their pit boxes happened to be located next to each other. To make matters worse, Keselowski’s box was first, so Gibbs had to go through the #6 driver’s box. At the same time, the RFK team were just coming over the pit wall in anticipation of Keselowski. The tire changer from the #6 was clipped by the #54 Toyota, and this led to some heated words and a tense moment on the pit road. Many anticipated that NASCAR would rule with an iron fist and slap the #54 team with a penalty.
Well, that didn’t happen; instead, NASCAR has now come out to share fine details stating that Gibbs didn’t break any rules and didn’t warrant a penalty. Mike Ford shared his take on the incident while speaking on the Hauler Talk. “Ty Gibbs does not have to obey any of those (lines). Those are for if a car is already in that pit box. So if (Keselowski) was in that pit box, those markings come into play, and Gibbs would have to be on the outside of that diagonal line. Because (Keselowski) wasn’t in that pit stall yet, those don’t come into play.”
Close call.
Here’s another view from yesterday’s action on pit road. pic.twitter.com/APXiDoOJQb
— RFK Racing (@RFKracing) July 14, 2025
A lot of fans pointed out that Ty Gibbs went over the orange line, and therefore, he should be penalized. Forde clearly stated that those are just markings and do not necessarily warrant a penalty unless the driver is speeding on the pit road. Forde even went on to explain that the drivers are advised to keep a safe distance when they are going to pit together to ensure the safety of the crew and officials.
“In the case of two vehicles coming in nose to tail, the trailing vehicle should allow a sufficient gap. So in other words, (Keselowski) should have given (Gibbs) a little bit more room so that things like the tire carrier getting hit wouldn’t happen,” Forde explained. It wasn’t just Mike Forde, even veterans like Kevin Harvick and Dale Jr. had a similar view of the entire pit road chaos at Sonoma.
Harvick feels Keselowski’s team could’ve avoided the clash
Dale Jr. didn’t pick sides between the two parties, but even he felt that Brad Keselowski could’ve given Gibbs a little more space to avoid the jumble. He suggested that, rather than a penalty, the NASCAR officials should have a word with the JGR driver ahead of the Dover race and resolve this like they did back in the day. On the flip side, Kevin Harvick shed light on the core issue with this clash.
“Ty didn’t do anything wrong here. NASCAR said it as well. My advice to the guy carrying the tire is the move the tires. If you don’t want to get hit by the car, move the tires. That’s your responsibility, not the drivers. They give you that luxury of not having to jump off the wall anymore, but when I was a driver and I felt you tire carrier was swinging around too wide and it was affecting the way I get into the box, I would brush them. There’s no doubt in my mind,” Harvick said on the Happy Hour podcast.
What are your thoughts on this raging hot topic, and should NASCAR have a better rule book and strict regulations for the pit road personnel?
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