Ty Dillon breaks down In-Season challenge strategy that helped him outperform Denny Hamlin among others

Ty Dillon unraveled the strategy that helped him beat Denny Hamlin in the 2025 NASCAR In-Season Challenge. Speaking about this, the Kaulig Racing driver stated how he pulled off his wild card at Atlanta, followed the strategy of executing the race perfectly, and got the better of the Joe Gibbs Racing driver during the Echopark Speedway race.

Dillon was matched with Hamlin in the first round of the In-Season Challenge in the inaugural season of the format, where 32 drivers go head-to-head against each other for a $1 million prize purse. The two drivers faced off at the Challenge Round 1 - Quaker State 400, Available at Walmart.

Dillon started his race from 14th place, 19 places ahead of Hamlin. In the end, the #10 driver finished his race in eighth place, ahead of Chris Buescher, and behind Zane Smith. On the other hand, Hamlin faced a DNF after crashing out in Lap 72 of 260.

Dillon spoke about his race against Denny Hamlin in a recently surfaced interview with Frontstretch. This was the race where Dillon stated that they were able to pull off the strategy of executing their race perfectly and put pressure on the rival. Here's what he stated about it:

"You just never know. I felt very confident going into Atlanta for some reason. It didn't make any sense, but it's not a track that I had ran well at, but I knew that it was an opportunity, a tracker opportunity, and turned out we ran really strong and that we were going to put pressure on Denny no matter what. And we come out of there with a win." (1:58 onwards)

"And then it kind of told us, you know, anything's possible from here on out and how we go about this. So, um you know, each week I haven't really made it about beating the other card. It's about having a finish. And I think our whole team's been focused on that. We all know the objective. We want to beat that other guy in the in the bracket, but we're strong believers in if we execute our day and do our things the right way, we're going to end up putting pressure on those guys and give ourselves a chance to beat him."

Ty Dillon went on to craft multiple upsets after Denny Hamlin. He beat Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing driver Brad Keselowski in the Challenge Round 2 in Chicago and then defeated Hendrick Motorsports driver Alex Bowman in Challenge Round 3 at Sonoma.

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Denny Hamlin lauded Ty Dillon's jibe, urged fans to give him "his moment"

Following the conclusion of the race, Ty Dillon took a jibe at Denny Hamlin, where he said, "I beat your favorite driver." As soon as Dillon's statement surfaced on the internet, it instantly became viral. While fans had different things to say, Hamlin loved the dig.

Ty Dillon (10) during qualifying for the Grant Park 165 at Chicago Street Race - Source: Imagn

Speaking about the incident on his podcast, Actions Detrimental, here's what the JGR driver said:

“I see people giving Ty Dillon a lot of flak. Ty Dillon, give him his moment, people. He beat me. … He was ahead of me the whole [expletive] race. I was 33rd until we crashed. Just let him have his moment. He texted me, ‘Hey, I was just playing around.’ I was like, ‘Bro, I loved it.’”

Up next, Ty Dillon faces John Hunter Nemechek of Legacy Motor Club this Sunday at the Challenge Round 4 at Dover for a place in the final of the In-Season Challenge. In case of a win, he will either face Tyler Reddick of 23XI Racing or Ty Gibbs of Joe Gibbs Racing for the $1 million prize.