By David Morgan, Associate Editor
SPEEDWAY, Ind. – The Cinderella run had to end sometime and it was in Sunday’s Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway – the finale for the inaugural NASCAR In-Season Challenge.
Coming into the day, Ty Gibbs was the heavy favorite in his No. 54 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota against underdog Ty Dillon and the No. 10 Kaulig Racing team.
For four weeks, Dillon had bucked the odds in his path to the finale as the lowest ranked seed in the tournament, but on Sunday, they had to fight a battle on two fronts – performance and just outright surviving the challenge that is Indianapolis.
Gibbs started the day well ahead in the running order, rolling off from fifth-place, with Dillon and his team hoping that some misfortune would befall their rivals as the race played out.
However, Dillon was the one to run into trouble, struggling with the handling on his machine and then finding himself involved in a stack-up on a restart at the beginning of Stage 2, which caused enough damage to his Chevrolet for him to only be able to limp it around for the remainder of the day, finishing a dismal 28th – three laps down to the leaders.
“Disappointing obviously, but things like that happen and you can’t predict everything,” said Dillon. “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 they would say as a team that they had the best day either. 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.
“So, 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 you are just kind of riding for the rest of the day.”
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Gibbs would end the day in 21st place at the tail end of the lead lap, but it was enough to earn him the $1 million paycheck and the title belt that comes with it.
Though Gibbs walked away with the prize money, he noted after the race that he would be donating portion of it to a charity of Dillon’s choice as a part of a challenge put up by his sponsor before the race in regards to donating to the losing team.
“Super cool. Very honored to be in this position. Thankful to all of NASCAR and TNT Sports to allow us to be able to do this. It’s awesome to win this. Super cool to be in this position,” said Gibbs.
“I told the broadcast on the other show, but our sponsor Saia challenged Ty Dillon’s sponsor whoever loses gets $10,000 for Toys for Tots. I want to put another 10 on top of that. Wherever Ty wants it to go will be his choice. Super cool to be in this position and very blessed.”
As far as the race itself, Gibbs noted that once he lost the track position he started the day with, it was a challenge to regain the lost ground as the race played out to the end.
“From racing on our side, we kind of lost a little bit of track position with a tragedy in the beginning,” said Gibbs.
“Then I didn’t have a couple of great restarts, and we just got buried. It’s so hard to pass here. It’s almost like a roulette wheel kind of where you end up and how it works out for you. Then the cautions before they fell. It’s just one of those days, but you’ve just got to keep digging.”
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