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 Toyot…
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