Gibbs Hangs on for In-Season Challenge Triumph
- tandersen87
- Jul 26
- 3 min read
SPEEDWAY, Ind. — Ty Gibbs is leaving Indianapolis Motor Speedway $1 million richer.
The driver of the No. 54 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota bested Ty Dillon in Sunday’s Brickyard 400 to take home the prize money in NASCAR’s inaugural In-Season Challenge. The sixth-seeded Gibbs had to finish ahead of the 32nd-seeded Dillon and did so with a 21st-place result. Dillon finished 28th, three laps down.
Gibbs was presented with a sleek black-and-gold trophy, ring and heavyweight AEW wrestling belt for his triumph, celebrating on the bricks just beneath the iconic Indianapolis Motor Speedway pagoda and tossing faux dollar bills around to celebrate with the fans.
“Super cool. Very honored to be in this position,” Gibbs said. “Thank you to all of NASCAR and TNT Sports for allowing us to be able to do this. It’s awesome to win this and super cool to be in this position.”
In addition to the collection of items thrown his way, Gibbs takes home the $1 million prize. Well, most of it.
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“A million bucks is a lot of money,” Gibbs told TNT Sports. “I’m going to give $10,000 to wherever Ty Dillon wants to choose to give to charity.”
Dillon had been the Cinderella story of the inaugural In-Season Challenge. He was the bottom-most seed entering the 32-driver, five-race tournament. He upset top-seeded Denny Hamlin in the opener at EchoPark Speedway (formerly Atlanta), where Hamlin and others wrecked in the “Big One.” One week later, he got the better of No. 17 seed Brad Keselowski at the Chicago Street Course when Keselowski was collected in another early crash.
With his hopes dwindling seven days later at Sonoma Raceway, Dillon took the bumper to Alex Bowman to muscle his way into the semifinal round, where he bested John Hunter Nemechek at Dover Motor Speedway by earning the free pass on a caution period in the closing moments.
But at Indianapolis, Dillon’s day took a significant downturn on a Lap 56 restart. Josh Berry appeared to miss a shift in the inside lane while running toward the front of the field. That stacked up a slew of cars, resulting in nose-to-tail damage for a number of competitors. Dillon was one of the many collected, incurring heavy nose damage that hindered his No. 10 Kaulig Racing Chevrolet.
“Disappointing, obviously, but things like that happen,” Dillon said.” You can’t predict everything. I think that’s what’s been so cool about this In-Season Challenge for everybody. I just hate that we didn’t get to give him a run for it there. I don’t think they would say as a team they had their best day either. And I think if all things are equal (and) we don’t knock the nose off on that restart, [we’re] probably sitting in a good position, put a lot of pressure on him and race him out pretty solid.”
Ultimately, the air ducts were “pinched off,” Dillon said, severely limiting the motor’s power at the end of Indy’s long straightaways.
Though the glass slipper didn’t fit when the clock struck midnight, Dillon remained appreciative for what the last five weeks brought him, including a stretch of four consecutive top-20 finishes.
“It’s painful right now that we didn’t win the whole thing,” Dillon said. “But it definitely doesn’t overshadow how much this whole run has meant for us and our team, our sponsors. We’re grateful, man. It’s a good boost of energy.
“Hopefully we’ll finish out the year strong because of it. I believe in our team and what the future holds. So today was tough, but you know, this run has been really great and I appreciate it.”
Release via NASCAR.com
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