Todd Gilliland and Ryan Blaney have opted to have a little fun with their pairing in this weekend’s championship round of the second In-Season Challenge tournament. Turns out, that’s been the norm between the two of them for some time.
In dueling Ford Racing teleconferences Tuesday, Blaney and Gilliland expressed their anticipation for Sunday’s Brickyard 400 (2 p.m. ET, TNT Sports, truTV, HBO Max, IMS Radio Network, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) and their head-to-head clash for the challenge’s $1 million prize. Their friendly face-off pits a 25th-seeded underdog in Gilliland against a favored heavyweight in Blaney, the No. 3 seed and a former NASCAR Cup Series champion.
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The stakes might be high for a crown-jewel event with a seven-figure bonus for the taking, but the pre-race banter has been light-hearted. “Gillie for a Milli” has been a recent rallying cry for the 26-year-old Gilliland, who — when prodded for an origin story for his best-known nickname — jokingly said, “Blaney’s gonna be calling me the Toddfather after this weekend, dude, when we wax him, hopefully.”
Blaney’s introduction to his own video conference moments later including a tongue-in-cheek warning about the pre-emptive smack-talk barbs that Gilliland was hoping to land. “Is he?” Blaney said with a smile. “Wow.” But both drivers made it clear that no deep-rooted rivalry exists. Instead, their common connections bind them.
Both of their fathers — Dave Blaney and David Gilliland — had long Cup Series careers, with no friction between the two that their sons could recall. Their dual upbringings in a racing family meant travel, time at the track and a greater understanding of the value of hands-on work to make their race cars find speed.
“You have a huge appreciation for that, and I’m sure Todd was the same way,” the younger Blaney said, “and we’re both very lucky to do what our fathers did and have really good careers. No, I don’t think there’s a rivalry there that has stemmed down like a Hatfield-McCoy situation. It’s just two kids trying to win their teams a bunch of money.”
The good-natured fun didn’t just start this week. When both were asked to share their favorite stories about the other, both Blaney and Gilliland zeroed in on a shared moment from a few years back at a Ford Racing team-building retreat. This particularly memorable semi-annual gathering was held at the Pursell Farms golf resort outside of Birmingham, Alabama, with an afternoon of activities planned, dinner and an overnight stay heading into a race weekend at Talladega Superspeedway.
The bonding extended into the evening, and before long, about a half-dozen drivers had jammed onto a golf cart hurtling through the deep Alabama night. Blaney said he had been teasing Gilliland about the potential for tree-dwelling evil that lurked in the dark woods, aiming to give him chills.
“There were some liquid courage-builders that I think a lot of us indulged in and we were on a golf cart,” Blaney recalled. “We were having a fun time, and I might have ended up off the golf cart by the end of this ride through no fault of anybody’s.”
Gilliland’s retelling was far more dire.
“It’s pitch black, we can’t see anything and we hit a ditch,” Gilliland said. “None of us could see it, and Blaney flew off the back and we’re like, ‘Oh, no. We just killed Ryan Blaney.’ But, luckily, everyone survived. I don’t know if the Ford guys were very happy with us after that, but we were like, ‘We won’t get in trouble because Ryan is with us.’ He was the champion at that point, but then we thought we hurt him, so that was probably an all-time Ryan Blaney story for me.”
Levity or not, neither driver is taking a face-value assessment of their title matchup. Gilliland’s best finish in his march through the tournament bracket was an eighth-place outing last weekend at North Wilkesboro Speedway, but his other results have been enough to unseat a pair of teammate duos — Spire Motorsports’ Daniel Suárez and Carson Hocevar, plus Hendrick Motorsports’ Alex Bowman and Chase Elliott. Placing eighth last Sunday marked just his second top 10 of the year, moving the Front Row Motorsports driver to 23rd in the Cup Series standings.
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Blaney, meanwhile, has finished no worse than 11th in the four In-Season Challenge races leading into Sunday’s final at Indianapolis. That stretch included a dominant win at EchoPark Speedway near Atlanta, a victory that fortified the Team Penske driver’s third-ranking spot in the Cup Series standings and tightened the top of the points race with just five regular-season races remaining this year.
Blaney, however, said the Sunday showdown shouldn’t be considered a walkover, especially since the Brickyard rates as one of Gilliland’s best tracks. In the two years since the Cup Series’ Indianapolis stop returned to the 2.5-mile oval course, Blaney’s average finish there is fifth place. Gilliland’s is sixth.
“Todd is a great driver, and they have a really good team over there, so it’s gonna be tough,” Blaney said. “I don’t think people should write anything off. I’m not going into this weekend thinking that it’s going to be a layup because it’s not. It’s gonna be incredibly difficult, and we have to be on top of our game to try to not only compete for the win, but also race that 34 car too. I don’t think that’s accurate, what people are saying. I think it’s gonna be just as tough as ever no matter who you’re facing because you’re not gonna be able to have any mistakes. You better be fast on the race track. You better be good on pit road, and your strategy better be where it should be. I think it’s gonna be a heck of a battle, for sure.”
Gilliland agreed, but couldn’t resist one last jab.
“Put the house on us, that’s what I would say,” Gilliland said. “We made it this far, why not us? We’ll see. I’m with you. I would probably agree with all of those people who say we’re fighting an uphill battle, but, honestly, we’ve been the underdogs in however many matchups there’s been, but it’s doable. It’s crazy. It’s only one person standing between us and winning this thing, so I’m excited about it.”