A Celebration of Coy Gibbs Short Racing Career

By: Tom Luttermoser

Coy Gibbs was the youngest son of former Washington Redskins Coach and future Hall of Fame NASCAR team owner, Joe Gibbs. The father of 4 children; Jett, Ty, Case and Elle. Unfortunately, early yesterday morning we were told that Coy's son and brand new Xfinity Series Champion Ty had a family emergency and would not assume his roll as fill-in driver for the 23XI 23 car for the final race of the season due to a family emergency. We would find out a few hours later in an official statement from Joe Gibbs Racing that Coy had passed away in his sleep. Once racing for Joe Gibbs Racing, 2022 Cup Champion Joey Logano even dedicated the race win and Championship to Coy.

But this isn't going to be an article focusing on the passing, but a rundown of his fairly impressive however short, career as a NASCAR driver in the Craftsman Truck and then Busch Series.

Coy was a former linebacker for Stanford University from 1991-1994 but in 2000 Coy came over to the racing side. Coy would debut at the 2000 Blue-Emu Maximum Pain Relief 200 at Martinsville in the #20 JGR Chevrolet Silverado and would finish a very respectable 18th position. He would attempt 14 races that season with a best finish of 13th at Chicago Motor Speedway.

Coy would then go on to score his first Top-10 in the season opener at Daytona in 2001 and would finish 10th in the season standings with 7 Top-10s and 2 Top-5s. In 2002 Coy had a horrible start to his Craftsman Truck season but would follow up those 4 finishes outside the Top-20 by finishing 9th or better in 9 consecutive races getting a total of 14 Top-10s and 4 Top-5s ending up 10th in the standings yet again. On top of that, Coy would make 5 Busch Series starts in the JGR #20 Pontiac and Chevrolets.

2003 would mark the end of Coy's NASCAR racing career and he would field the #18 Busch Series car for his father scoring only 2 Top-10s that season.