Todd Gilliland was never supposed to be here. The Front Row Motorsports driver arrived in NASCAR's In-Season Challenge as the No. 25 seed, the longest shot left standing, and yet he carries a shot at $1 million into this weekend's semifinals at North Wilkesboro.
The In-Season Challenge is a 32-driver, single-elimination bracket run across five Cup Series races, with the last driver standing collecting a seven-figure payday. Four remain. Gilliland faces Hendrick Motorsports' Chase Elliott, the No. 4 seed, in one semifinal, while Ryan Blaney meets Christopher Bell in the other.
Gilliland's run has been built on the finest of margins. He was 29th at Sonoma and 16th at Chicagoland, and survived the round at Atlanta only after Alex Bowman spun late and restarted on his bumper in overtime.
"We've been barely hanging on by the skin of our teeth each one of these rounds," Gilliland said. "But we're here now, and now we only got two more guys to beat."
For much of the tournament he barely registered it was happening. "Maybe the first time I have heard anything about the In-Season [Challenge] over the radio or during the race was after [Bowman] spun and he restarted right on my bumper," he said.
What began as a curiosity has become a rallying point for one of the grid's smaller teams. "It has been a lot of fun just to see my team kind of buy into something," Gilliland said, adding that the schedule now swings in his favour: "Going back to some short tracks will be really good for us."
North Wilkesboro, the restored 0.625-mile bullring in the North Carolina foothills, is exactly the kind of venue where a well-drilled underdog can trouble the favourites.
Bell arrives with momentum of a different sort. The Joe Gibbs Racing driver reached the final four despite racing back from a wrist injury suffered at Michigan, and had circled this weekend on his calendar. "It's certainly one we had circled, and especially after my injury at Michigan, we knew it was six weeks out and it was the race I was looking forward to this summer, and I'm very excited about being healthy and getting back to what really I think our strength is," Bell said.
He remains without a win in 2026 but is unbothered by the drought. "I still haven't won yet, but I know we are going to win at some point and we are going to keep putting ourselves in position," Bell said. Of his tournament run, he added: "I'm happy to be alive and made it a lot further than last year, that's for sure."
The semifinals — and the winner-take-all final — play out at North Wilkesboro this weekend, live on TNT Sports.
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*Originally published on [Motorsports Global](https://motorsports.global/article/gillilands-1m-underdog-run-hits-north-wilkesboro-semis). Visit for full coverage.*