NORTH WILKESBORO, N.C. — While a champion hasn’t been crowned in the second-annual NASCAR Cup Series In-Season Challenge, one thing is for certain after Sunday night (July 19) at North Wilkesboro Speedway: the winner will be a blue oval.
Todd Gilliland and Ryan Blaney beat out Chase Elliott and Christopher Bell, respectively, to be the last two drivers standing in the bracket. Either Front Row Motorsports or Team Penske will leave Indianapolis Motor Speedway next Sunday (July 26) $1 million richer.
After Saturday’s qualifying season got rained out, Blaney earned the pole via the NASCAR rulebook, but he did not stay there for the green flag. The No. 12 team fixed a power steering issue pre-race, forcing Blaney to drop to the rear of the field for the initial start.
“I thought we did a really good job of coming from the back, and where we got to kind of midway through stage 2 I thought was really, really good,” Blaney told Frontstretch post-race. “I kind of settled into like fourth to sixth place. I kind of feel like that’s where I was at.”
However, the adversity did not end there for the 2023 Cup Series champion. During his final pit stop of the night on lap 365, Blaney got pegged for speeding on pit road, serving a pass-through penalty that sent him tumbling out of the top 10. Nonetheless, Blaney had enough speed under the hood of his Penske Ford to rally to an 11th-place finish, albeit two laps down.
“I sped getting on pit road during the green flag stop and that hurt our night,” Blaney said. “So yeah, that’s a bummer, but still a decent day overall and year, moving on [in the In-Season Challenge]. I didn’t really know where the No. 20 [Bell] was at or whatever but yeah, we’ll go forward in Indy.”
Bell finished eight spots below Blaney in 19th, three laps down.
While many NASCAR fans and pundits probably had Blaney reaching the In-Season Challenge final in their brackets, few likely anticipated his Ford opponent in Gilliland.
The 25th-seeded Gilliland continued his Cinderella run, reminiscent of Ty Dillon last year, with an eighth-place showing at North Wilkesboro. It was Gilliland’s second top 10 of the season to go along with a sixth at Bristol Motor Speedway back in April, and it could not have come at a better time for the No. 34 team.
“I’m really proud of my team for kind of digging in here,” Gilliland said on pit road post-race. “What we’ve had here [at North Wilkesboro] hasn’t been good and just going out on an island, and yeah, luckily it was a little bit better.”
Gilliland’s effort received a boost when he found himself on the right side of pit strategy when the third caution of the night came out on lap 184. Alex Bowman misjudged his pit entry on the backstretch and spun out following contact with Tyler Reddick.
The yellow flag trapped several drivers a lap down who had already pitted during the green-flag cycle, including Bowman’s Hendrick teammate and Gilliland’s ISC opponent Elliott. Elliott never got back on the lead lap and settled for a 17th-place finish, three laps down and two laps behind Gilliland.
“We definitely caught a big lucky break there at the beginning [with the caution],” Gilliland said. “But it’s strategy, right? We kind of knew there was a risk with short-pitting and everybody did. So yeah, I was definitely very, very proud of the strategies, kind of the whole we executed honestly.”
With the Cup Series’ return to points racing in the North Carolina foothills now in the rearview mirror, the two Ford drivers turn their focus to The Brickyard … and each other.
Gilliland is aware that he will be the underdog once again going up against the top Ford driver this season in Blaney.
“Yeah, the No. 12 is pretty good, that’s for sure,” Gilliland said. “That’s the reason why they’re at this point in the bracket. So yeah, I’m excited about it. It still is, you know, we have to do what’s best for the No. 34 team and race all the way to the checkered flag, because you never really know.”
For his part, Blaney is excited that the In-Season Challenge will be a Ford family affair.
“Yeah, Ford is going to get it, so that’s good,” Blaney said. “It will be a good race. You know, that group at FRM does a good job, and Todd is a really talented race car driver. So, it will be a tough one. Indy, a lot of strategy goes on there, a lot of things can happen, so we’re going to have to be on top of our game like every week.”
Andrew Stoddard joined Frontstretch in May of 2022 and is currently an editor and a weekly writer of Stat Sheet. He is a graduate of Hampden-Sydney College, the University of Richmond, and VCU. He works as an athletic communications specialist at Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Va.
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