Ty Gibbs takes home $1 million after winning NASCAR’s In-Season Challenge

Ty Gibbs enjoyed a big payday in Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Indianapolis Speedway, as he took home $1 million for winning NASCAR’s inaugural In-Season Challenge.

Sixth-seed Gibbs outduelled TY Dillon in the final race of the five-round tournament, taking the chequered flag in 21st place in the No. 54 Toyota. His rival Dillon finished the race three laps down in 28th position.

Apart from a seven-figure reward, Gibbs also received a black-and-gold trophy, a heavyweight AEW wrestling belt and a commemorative ring for his triumph.

“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 an interview with TNT Sports, he added; “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.”

Gibbs, the grandson of team owner Joe Gibbs, admitted he didn’t initially pay much attention to the In-Season Challenge, until the penultimate round made him a real contender.

“It’s super cool. I didn’t really focus on it for the first three weeks, I would say,” he explained. “Our goal, of course, is to go in and do the best we can. The last week and this week is kind of where I started to pick it up, okay, 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.”

A total of 32 full-season drivers were eligible for the In-Season Challenge, but the field was whittled down to just two drivers for the Brickyard 400.

Dillon was the lowest-seeded driver in 32nd place, but he gradually rose to contention, usurping the likes of Denny Hamlin and Brad Keselowski on his way to the finals.

However, his victory challenge was derailed in Indianapolis when Josh Berry missed a gearshift at the restart on lap 56, with Dillon’s No. 10 Kaulig Racing Chevrolet among a number of cars sustaining damage in the incident.

The air ducts on his car were “pinched off”, limiting the power supply from the engine.

“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.”

He added: “It’s painful right now that we didn’t win the whole thing. 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.”