By: Zach Catanzareti
After “beating your favorite driver” (Denny Hamlin) in Round 1 of the inaugural In-Season Challenge at Atlanta Motor Speedway, Ty Dillon has officially gone all the way.
Beating Brad Keselowski and Alex Bowman the last two races, Dillon had only John Hunter Nemechek between him and a spot in the final two.
And following a 20th-palce finish Sunday at Dover Motor Speedway, the No. 10 Kaulig Racing Chevrolet will now race for the $1 million prize next week at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
“I just I didn’t know how it was going to happen. I just kept believing that good things are going to happen, believing in the good,” Dillon said. “And like I said earlier, I had a lot of people text me, they were praying for me, and I just knew that something good was going to happen.”
Though Nemechek was also an underdog running for the big payout, Dillon’s is as dramatic as any other.
Coming in as the 32nd and final seed, Dillon has advanced from avoiding accidents, bump-and-runs and good ole trash talk.
Sunday, however, was a straight-up race to the end.
Running in line with Nemechek in the closing stages, Dillon took advantage of a late-race restart to overtake the No. 42 and slide into the free pass position.
And then the caution came out, trapping Nemechek off the lead lap and nearly confirming Dillon’s advancement with only two laps to go.
“I knew something might happen and knew to never give up and just take opportunity when it opened up,” he said. “So, I’m just proud of what we got here.
“Being aggressive, man. Finding the holes. You never know what’s gonna happen. You know there’s gonna be chaos and restarts. You got to take the opportunity early. I was able to do that and taking the [No.] 47 three wide and getting us to the spot we need to be.”
Before the penultimate yellow, Dillon and crew even took to the radio waves to fool Nemechek and Legacy Motor Club into an alternate strategy.
“We were trying to trick him,” he said. “We were we had a plan to call out two tires, hopefully they were listening to us and take four and that’s what we did. And it really didn’t change anything. He started in front of me.
“Just had some good restarts there and Right place, right time, make the right moves, and I got to hold up my end of the bargain on this deal when they put me in the right spot to capitalize.”