Gibbs Tops Dillon For $1 Million In-Season Challenge Prize

Ty Gibbs celebrates his $1 million In-Season Tournament victory at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. (John Harrelson/Nigel Kinrade Photography)

SPEEDWAY, Ind. – The inaugural NASCAR Cup Series In-Season Tournament concluded in thrilling fashion during Sunday’s 29th Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

The No. 8 seed in the tournament, Ty Gibbs, derailed No. 32 seed Ty Dillon’s Cinderella efforts after surviving both late-race carnage and fuel strategy to collect the million-dollar prize for Joe Gibbs Racing.

During the tournament, Gibbs bested the likes of Justin Haley (27), A.J. Allmendinger (22), Zane Smith (14), and Tyler Reddick (23) before defeating Dillon in the title round.

In terms of his overall day Sunday, Gibbs was pleased, even if it didn’t end in the race win he’s been searching for.

“We had a fast SAIA Toyota Camry. Didn’t end up where we wanted to in the end. We just lost track position and were out of the way to win the race. Had to play it a little but safe,” said Gibbs, who finished 21st. “I want to thank everyone at Joe Gibbs Racing, everyone that’s a part of this deal. Thank you to TNT and NASCAR for this opportunity. It’s awesome to win [the Tournament].

“I didn’t really focus on it for the first three weeks, I would say. Our goal, of course, is to go in and do the best we can,” he continued. “The last week [at Dover] and this week is kind of where I started to pick it up and say, ‘OK, well, if we beat these guys, we can go win a million dollars.’

“It’s a really cool deal that they put on, and hopefully they keep doing it.”

While Gibbs ran among the top 10 for a portion of the day at IMS, various differing strategies came into play during the closing stint – and eventually double-overtime finish – that set back his end result.

But he also struggled early and had to fight to maintain as well, a point Gibbs noted afterward.

“From racing on our side, we kind of lost a little bit of track position with a tragedy in the beginning. Then I didn’t have a couple of great restarts, and we just got buried,” Gibbs noted. “It’s so hard to pass here. It’s almost like a roulette wheel kind of, in where you end up and how it works out for you here. Then the cautions fell.

“It was just one of those days, but you’ve got to keep digging and we will.”

On the other side of the ring, Dillon knocked off the No. 1 overall seed in Denny Hamlin in the opening round at EchoPark Speedway, before bouncing Brad Keselowski (17), Alex Bowman (8), and John Hunter Nemechek (12) en route to his shot at the cash.

But alas, the clock struck midnight, and the carriage became a pumpkin again for the Kaulig Racing team.

“Disappointing obviously, but things like that happen and you can’t predict everything,” Dillon said about a chaotic restart at the beginning of stage two which damaged the nose of his No. 10 Chevrolet.

“That has been what has been so cool about this In-Season Challenge for everybody. I just hate that we didn’t get to give them a run for it there. I don’t think [Ty Gibbs] would say as a team that they had the best day either,” he added. “I think if all things are equal and we don’t knock the nose off on that restart, we are probably sitting in a pretty good position to put some pressure on him and race him out pretty solid. The first-half of the race, we were okay, and then we had a bad run there at the end of stage one. I think we were going to be able to get the car back right and challenge him, but it just didn’t work out that way and it’s disappointing.

“Something happened where it knocked off all the air duct, and pinched off the air so the motor wouldn’t run down the straightaways. Then we were just kind of riding for the rest of the day.”

Gibbs’ sponsor SAIA Freight and Dillon’s sponsor Sea Best had a side wager going into the tournament finale, where the losing sponsor would donate $10,000 to Toys for Tots.

But a positive still emerged for Dillon at the end of the day, as following the race, Gibbs noted, “One million dollars is a lot of money … so I’m going to donate $10,000 to whichever charity Ty Dillon wants to give to. It’s his choice.”

While the midseason festivities are over, there is still a lot of substance left in the NASCAR Cup Series season. Just four races remain until the playoff field of 16 championship hopefuls is set.

Following Bubba Wallace’s fuel mileage master class at Indianapolis, 13 drivers have locked into the postseason field based on wins, leaving just three spots tentatively open for point-based berths.

With the summer winding down, the intensity ramps up in the race to the playoffs. The next stop for the NASCAR Cup Series lies at Iowa Speedway for the Iowa Corn 350.

TV coverage shifts to the NBC family of networks, and USA Network goes on-air at 3:30 p.m. ET for race day action, with the radio call on the Motor Racing Network and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, channel 90.

HBO Max will continue to offer exclusive in-car cameras and driver scanner audio for the Cup Series.