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07/24 15:18 CDT Ryan Blaney, Todd Gilliland ready for Brickyard 400 balancing act with $1 million prize at stake Ryan Blaney, Todd Gilliland ready for Brickyard 400 balancing act with $1 million prize at stake By MICHAEL MAROT AP Sports Writer INDIANAPOLIS (AP) --- Ryan Blaney faces a high-stakes weekend in Indianapolis. He's hoping to put Roger Penske back in victory lane at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and he'd like to add a second crown jewel win to his resume. At the same time, he's chasing a $1 million pay day --- if he finishes ahead of surprise finalist Todd Gilliland in NASCAR's second In-Season Challenge. Blaney's solution is to simplify matters by sweeping both titles Sunday with one amazing Brickyard 400. "We obviously understand what we're going for with the In-Season Challenge," Blaney said before Friday's short practice. "But at the same time, you're trying to win the race. That's the big one here --- and trying to win for Roger at this place is incredibly important in our race shop and to everyone on this team. So I've looked at it as like, just go try to run the best race you can and focus on that." Blaney heads into race weekend as the favorite in the final round of the challenge. The 2023 Cup champion has strung together 11 consecutive finishes of 11th or better, a feat he's achieved in 17 of 21 races this season. Two weeks ago in Atlanta he captured his second win of the year. Now the Ohio-born Blaney returns to the Midwest ranked third in points, 19 behind Tyler Reddick, the 2022 Brickyard 200 champ who is trying to become the first Cup driver to win on the track's road course and the historic 2.5-mile oval that will be used Sunday. Reddick said he wasn't sure if team owner Michael Jordan would attend the race. Gilliland, meanwhile, has struggled lately. His eighth-place finish at North Wilkesboro, North Carolina, was his first top 10 in 13 races, and the 26-year-old enters the weekend 23rd in points, though he's continued to do just enough to keep advancing through the challenge rounds. But facing his toughest test yet, Gilliland seems to be adopting a "Hoosiers"-like attitude. "We've caught a lot of lucky breaks. We've barely been skating by all these rounds," the Front Row Motorsports driver said. "But now that we're here, yeah, it feels a bit more real and you never know, right? Four hundred miles, anything can happen. So we're just going to go give our best effort and try not to think about what it would be like if we won." Neither finalist was near the top of Friday's leaderboard, though. Christopher Bell of Joe Gibbs Racing posted the fastest lap of the day at 183.512 mph, leading Toyota to a top-five sweep. John Hunter Nemechek of Legacy Motor Club was second at 183.180, followed by Ty Gibbs, Bell's teammate; Erik Jones, Nemechek's teammate; and Denny Hamlin of JGR, who still needs a Brickyard win to capture the fourth and final crown jewel title with time running shot on the 45-year-old's career. "I've got a couple shots in this left, so I think more desperate," Hamlin said when asked about his level of desire to win at Indy. "I'm certainly willing to take a small risk here on a restart, whatever it might be, on strategy, something to give us a real shot to win because this is like the Daytona 500." Gilliland and Blaney, who sat side by side at microphones Friday, view the Brickyard similarly even though they know fans will be watching the race inside the race just as closely as the final charge across the Yard of Bricks. In practice, Blaney also had the advantage. He was ninth on the speed chart at 182.526, the top speed of the Ford drivers. Gilliland, who also drives a Ford, was 28th at 180.712. Will that make a difference Sunday? "We beat them here last year so I don't know why we can't do it again," said Gilliland, who finished sixth --- one spot ahead of Blaney in 2025 at Indy. "But, yeah, overall, I think it's fair to say we're big underdogs. At the same time, anything can happen." Even, perhaps, Blaney's highly coveted sweep. "I got knocked out in the first round last year in Atlanta so it was nice to kind of go be part of it, see you racing every single week and go through the gauntlet," he said. "So nice to end it here at Indy. I think it's a great place to end it, an amazing race track. It will be exciting." ___ AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing

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