Winner Takes All: Ty Gibbs, Ty Dillon Battle for $1M in NASCAR Tournament

Denny Hamlin earned the No. 1 seed for NASCAR’s inaugural in-season tournament— and was promptly eliminated in the first race by Ty Dillon, the No. 32 seed.

Now, Dillon faces Ty Gibbs this weekend at Indianapolis to decide the first winner of the tournament and the $1 million prize that comes with it.

Hamlin said the five-race, bracket-style tournament overall was a success — but not without a few kinks. Some of the seeding was off, such as Shane van Gisbergen not qualifying for the field, then ripping off consecutive wins on the Chicago street race and Sonoma Raceway during the tournament races.

And sure, everyone loves a Cinderella in March. But two in July isn’t necessarily making the tournament the NASCAR story of the summer.

“I think it has been unfortunate, right, you probably had a lot of the top seeds get knocked out pretty early in it, but overall, I thought the implementation of it has been good,” Hamlin said.

The other side of the argument is this: Would any fan or media outlet really care about a pair of winless drivers such as Gibbs (the sixth seed) or Dillon at this point of the season without $1 million at stake?

“For a team like us, at this point in the season, we’re not exactly where we want to be yet, but we’re trending in a good direction,” Dillon said Sunday at Dover. “Our story doesn’t get told in years past. It’s mainly the guys trying to fight for the points position. It’s the guys running up front, trying to win the race. But our story and our growth in the year stops getting told. I’m grateful we’ve been able to show our personality as a team.”

Unlike the All-Star race where the winner pockets $1 million, the driver with the best finish earns the cash prize, a ring, jackets and a trophy.

Dillon had luck on his side during his run, with his lone top-10 finish coming in the first race in Atlanta. He advanced in that race after Hamlin crashed out and finished 31st. Dillon twice has finished 20th, including at Dover. He has a best finish of 13th in five career races on the Indy oval.

Gibbs, the grandson of team owner and football and NASCAR Hall of Famer Joe Gibbs, and Dillon have failed to win in a combined 374 Cup races. Dillon has only two career top-five finishes in a career that dates to 2014. The 22-year-old Gibbs has a much better pedigree, winning the 2022 Xfinity Series title, a series in which he was a 12-time winner. He has six top 10s already this season and could make NASCAR’s playoffs on points.

Gibbs has three straight top 10s in the tournament, including a fifth-place finish at Dover. Gibbs finished 23rd on the Indy oval last season.

He’s done enough to impress his grandfather.

“There’s some people there that we got off to a terrible start, it was awful, (but) I had people on that group that came to me encouraging me, ideas for me, after it. I think they care for Ty. It just was a huge deal,” the 84-year-old Gibbs said. “This sport will really measure you. But those guys have fought back.”

Reporting by The Associated Press.