Ryan Blaney’s involvement in a nine-car crash with 40 laps remaining in Sunday’s Brickyard 400 turned the In-Season Challenge in Todd Gilliland’s favor and eventually led to the underdog Front Row Motorsports driver claiming the $1 million prize.
“My heart was pounding those last 25 laps,” said Gilliland, who finished 24th, just two positions ahead of Blaney. “It was me, the 16 (A.J. Allmendinger), and the 12 (Blaney). Seemed like one slip up and I was going to be right in front of the 12 or right behind him even coming down to the very end.”
From the race’s beginning, Blaney was usually several positions ahead of Gilliland, but then the wreck occurred when John Hunter Nemechek got into Blaney as they charged down the back stretch, triggering the melee.
“It’s one of those things where you never cheer against someone,” said Gilliland, who like Blaney, is a third-generation driver. “After it’s over with, you’re like, ‘All right, that definitely helped us out. Now we definitely need to take advantage of it.’”
Gilliland, who was seeded 25th in the head-to-head bracket contest, admitted that winning the $1 million wasn’t something he thought was a “realistic goal.” However, his team believed they had a chance from the time the competition began on the road course at Sonoma, California, in June.
“I honestly feel like they were more into it at the very beginning,” Gilliland said. “They’re like, ‘C’mon, dude, we’re in this thing.’ They definitely cared about it a ton from the very beginning.
“When you’re the 25th seed looking up at that mountain of we have to beat this guy or this guy, it seems like a very tall task.”
Each week, Gilliland climbed that mountain a little more and on Sunday at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, he reached the top of it along with Corey Heim, who won the Brickyard 400.
Berry Records Season’s Best Finish
Josh Berry’s 2026 season has been a dismal one with the Wood Brothers Racing driver recording only three top-10 finishes, but in the Brickyard 400 he may have turned the corner.
Berry’s seventh-place finish at the 2.5-mile track was his best this year and his first top 10 since March at Martinsville, Virginia.
“Overall, it was a really solid day that we needed,” said Berry, who’s looking for a ride for 2027. “We had some really good restarts the second half of the race and made some progress, and we had some really good long run pace. I’m just happy to finally get a good finish.”
Short Day for Larson
A flat left-rear tire cut short Kyle Larson’s day in the Brickyard 400 won by Corey Heim.
Larson had pitted on lap 28 and was about ready to cycle into the lead when the left-rear tire on his Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet went flat. His car spun in turn three and slammed into the outside wall on lap 45 of the 160-lap race.
“I wouldn’t say pushing it had anything to do with it,” Larson said. “I was only going three-tenths quicker than I had been with saving fuel. It was just a little bit of bad luck, I guess.
“We qualified 10th and did what we had to do to gain the track position to get to the lead. We executed all of that really well. There was still, obviously, a lot of the race left, but I feel like we were positioning ourselves within the race and within the strategy to set ourselves up well to go after the win. It’s a bummer.”
A North Carolina native, Deb Williams is an award-winning motorsports journalist who is in her fourth decade covering auto racing. In addition to covering the sport for United Press International, she has written motorsports articles for several newspapers, magazines and websites including espnW.com, USA Today, and The Charlotte Observer. Her awards include the American Motorsports Media Award of Excellence, two-time National Motorsports Press Association writer of the year, and two-time recipient of the Russ Catlin award. She also has won an award in the North Carolina Press Association’s sports feature category. During her career, Deb has been managing editor of GT Motorsports magazine and was with Winston Cup Scene and NASCAR Winston Cup Scene for 18 years, serving as the publication’s editor for 10 years. In 2024 she was inducted into the NMPA Hall of Fame.