Ford Racing Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Cup Series
Brickyard 400 Media Availability — Indianapolis Motor Speedway
Friday, July 24, 2026
Ford drivers Ryan Blaney and Todd Gilliland will be squaring off against each other in the final round of the In-Season Challenge in Sunday’s Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Both drivers participated in a press conference in the IMS infield media center before today’s practice session to talk about their chance at winning the $1 million bonus.
TODD GILLILAND, No. 34 Front Row Motorsports Ford Mustang Dark Horse – CAN YOU TALK ABOUT GOING FOR THIS $1 MILLION ON SUNDAY? “For me, it’s just been a really cool opportunity with just the media. Our opportunities that have come out of it the last week to two weeks have been fun, so, for us, we’ve caught a lot of lucky breaks. We’ve been barely skating by all these rounds, but now that we’re here, it feels a little bit more real and you never know. Over the course of 400 miles anything can happen, so we’re all just gonna go give our best effort. I’ve been trying not to think about what it would be like if we won, just trying to put ourselves in position to do so.”
RYAN BLANEY, No. 12 Team Penske Ford Mustang Dark Horse – “I got knocked out of it the first round last year in Atlanta, so it was nice to be part of it and see who you’re facing every single week and go through the gauntlet. It’s nice to end it here at Indy. I think this is a great place to end it – at a really amazing racetrack, so it should be an exciting one on Sunday.”
TODD GILLILAND CONTINUED – WHAT DID YOU THINK OF RYAN’S PICKLE HYPE VIDEO? “I thought that was one of the funniest things I’ve seen in a long time. I absolutely loved that. I was just at home folding laundry and I opened up my phone and I was like, ‘Ryan, posted something.’ And I was like, ‘Whoa, whoa. No, he’s eating a pickle.’ And then I was like, ‘No way, that’s my voice, too.’ And then I watched the whole thing and I was like, ‘Oh, boy. That’s awesome.’ I didn’t know you guys could do stuff like that at Penske.” RYAN INTERJECTS: “It was their idea. I couldn’t believe it.” TODD CONTINUES: “I like it. That was more of a Front Row video, so I was super impressed about it. I loved it because I love talking a little trash, and I thought that was the perfect way of getting on social media, so it was fun.”
RYAN BLANEY CONTINUED – “I thought it was a good idea when Penske brought it to me, and they didn’t know that I absolutely, and this is an actual thing, I hate pickles. I absolutely despise pickles. All pickles. Not just Grillo’s. I hate every single one of them. So they were like, ‘Hey, we need you to take a bite out of this pickle.’ And I was like, ‘That’s gonna be a really big ask for me.’ That took me 10 minutes to wash it out of my moustache after I ate it, but it was fun. I was happy that Penske had some fun with it and it was fun to play around.”
TODD GILLILAND CONTINUED – DO YOU FEEL LIKE RYAN NEEDS TO SUFFER AN ISSUE FOR YOU TO WIN? “I’d be good either way, but we beat him here last year, so I don’t know why we can’t do it again. Overall, I think it’s fair to say that we’re big underdogs, but, at the same time, anything can happen. We’ll have to go out and see.”
RYAN BLANEY CONTINUED – HOW DO YOU VIEW THIS STRETCH WITH ONLY ONE TOP FIVE IN THE LAST 11 RACES? WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO DO TO TURN THOSE INTO TOP FIVES? “We’ve been grinding away. I feel like a lot of those races just kind of maximized our day, and you don’t want to have those maximized day be a seventh-place finish, but if that’s what we have that day, can we turn a ninth or 10th-place car and tweak on it all race and get a little bit better, then that’s what we’ve been doing. I’ve been proud of the effort there. I thought we had a good shot at running third or fourth last week until I sped, so I think we’ve been doing a good job of maximizing where we need to, and then trying to execute the best where we can, like Atlanta, where we were incredibly fast and was able to execute that night. I think we’re creeping up on it. I think the speed that we’ve shown out of our race shop from Atlanta, which is a different animal, but the 22 speed last week to dominate that race like they did, I think we’re in a good spot in our building right now, and you just hope to build it over the next five races until we get going here in the Chase.”
TODD GILLILAND CONTINUED – YOU’VE GOT SIXTH-PLACE FINISHES THE LAST TWO YEAR AND YOU’VE RUN WELL ON THE ROAD COURSE TOO. WHY HAS THIS PLACE BEEN SO GOOD TO YOU? “I don’t really know why it’s been good to us. I think, like Ryan said earlier, this is just an amazing racetrack, amazing facilities, and it’s always just been a lot of fun to come here, so I’ve enjoyed my time here. I do think it always helps when you run well and finish well. I think the finishes are probably blown out of the water of where we ran those days with just all of those late-race restarts, but it seems like that’s a theme here year over year, so I don’t really know. I’ve just always loved our time here. I think before we came back to the oval I was able to do a test here for two full days, and I also think that helped me just get my feet under me pretty early and just start to figure out this place.”
RYAN BLANEY CONTINUED – WHY DO YOU FEEL THIS PLACE DEMANDS EXCELLENCE? “I think everything has to be right here. I think it’s hard to come back after a mistake here, so I think that speaks to a lot of teams who can execute a full day, who can qualify well on Saturday, who can run a good race on the racetrack and on pit road and on the pit box. Teams that have all of that in line, I think those teams are very deserving of winning championships. That’s just a good functioning group. Here, you can’t afford any mistakes and the best teams, while they are able to overcome a lot of mistakes, it’s just hard to do here with the way the track is. So, those guys who execute full days on and off the racetrack, I think, are the best teams.”
TODD GILLILAND CONTINUED – IT APPEARS DAYS OF THUNDER 2 IS GOING AHEAD. WHAT WAS IT LIKE FOR BOTH OF YOU TO SEE THAT AND KNOW IT’S MOVING FORWARD? “For me, I love the first Days of Thunder. My wife hates watching it with me because I think I know literally every single word. I think it’s just a fun movie that, for the most part, represents NASCAR well. I’ve always really enjoyed that movie and I’m interested to see what the whole plot will be for the second one.”
RYAN BLANEY CONTINUED – “I think what they’ve been doing, especially Tom Cruise with bringing Top Gun back and the way they made that movie was incredible, so I’m excited to see what they do with Days of Thunder 2 because I know they’re gonna do it right. In talking with some of the writers about it, they feel really good about the direction they want to go. Mr. Cruise seems incredibly excited about doing a second Days of Thunder, so that part, I think, is gonna be good. It’s gonna be good for our sport and who knows? I think the next year or two is gonna be pretty fascinating seeing what they implement, what they want to do in the garage area and things like that – kind of like what they did with the first one. I think it’s great for the sport all around.”
RYAN, YOU HAVE SOME FILM EXPERIENCE. DO YOU HAVE A CASTING AGENT AND TO WHAT EXTENT HAVE YOU BEEN INVOLVED IN THE PLANNING PHASE FOR DAYS OF THUNDER 2? “Yeah, my casting agent’s name is Ryan Blaney. No, I don’t have one. I’ve just been fortunate to talk to one of the writers that has been really involved at the racetrack. He’s been at a ton of tracks last year and this year, and they’re doing it right. They’re not doing it themselves. They’re asking a lot of opinions from drivers and owners and things like that of, ‘Hey, what is the sport’s inner workings like now in situations that come up?’ So, that part has been fun to just give a little input. That’s really all I can do is, ‘Hey, what input from a driving standpoint can I give you,’ for them to do their job in it. It’ll be fun. I don’t know. Maybe some of us will be in it. We’ll see.”
TODD GILLILAND CONTINUED – HOW SPECIAL IS IT THAT A NASCAR DRIVER STARTED THE KISSING THE BRICKS TRADITION AND HOW MUCH DO YOU LOVE RACING AT IMS? “I definitely love my time here at Indianapolis. I think the city is great. There are tons of good restaurants. Just the overall experience is a lot of fun, and then back to the kissing the bricks. I got to see my teammate, Michael McDowell, do it four or five years ago. It was on the road course, but just to see all of the pictures hung up around the shop and how much that meant to our whole team, I think that opened my eyes to it a little bit. Yeah, obviously, I would love to do it for myself one day, but I think just the respect for this place and obviously, like I said, I ran the road course a few times before getting on the oval, but my first time going down that frontstretch on the oval you can feel the history. The massive scoring pylon, you kind of feel going over the yard of bricks, it’s a special place.”
RYAN BLANEY CONTINUED – WHAT IS YOUR APPROACH AS THE FAVORITE IN THIS IN-SEASON CHALLENGE, AND THEN GOING TO IOWA IN A COUPLE OF WEEKS? “For this weekend, we obviously understand what we’re going for with the In-Season Challenge, but at the same time you’re going to try to win the race, too. That’s the big one here and trying to win for Roger at this place is incredibly important at our race shop and to everyone on this team. I’ve looked at it, and I’ve looked at it all through this In-Season thing is like, just go try to run the best you can in the race and try to focus on that, and then if there are certain situations where you’re running next to the guy you’re up against, then it might change a little bit, but if you just go execute a really good day, then you hope that stuff is gonna work itself out and you’ll kind of go from there. Getting back to Iowa, I’m extremely excited that we’ve continued to go to Iowa. I think it was very deserving of a Cup race when they announced it a couple years ago. It was neat to win the first one there. I have a lot of family ties to just outside of that racetrack, so it’s been a really cool place and the fan draw there is fantastic. It puts on a really good show and I hope we continue to go back there because that’s a really important part of the country. There are a lot of race fans in that area and that’s a big staple for people in that Iowa region to go see a bunch of NASCAR racing.”
TODD GILLILAND CONTINUED – “I think for me going back to Iowa it’s a super unique racetrack of obviously the bottom kind of three lanes are paved and the rest is really old. You’re driving through cornfields and then a racetrack pops up, so it’s much different than a lot of the racetracks we go to. Like Ryan said, it’s in a great part of the country where they deserve to see some racing.”
DOES YOUR STRATEGY CHANGE AT ALL FOR THIS RACE NOW THAT THE MILLION DOLLARS IS ON THE LINE? “I think I’m really aligned with Ryan on that. I think going through the whole In-Season Challenge you really have to focus on yourself. That’s kind of what makes NASCAR so unique. Even when we get to the Chase here and the old playoffs. Those guys are fighting for something much bigger, but also each one of these race wins or a good finish means so much that I think that’s always top of your mind. From there, like Ryan said too, I think if everything goes your way and you execute to the best of your ability, in the back of your mind you would hope that things would work out for you. I think that’s been our goal this whole time is just go out and run the best we can with the 34 car and see where everything pans out.”
RYAN BLANEY CONTINUED – HOW MUCH WOULD YOU LIKE TO GET SOME RUBBER, ROAD GRIT, AND MAYBE SOME BRICK DUST ON THAT MOUSTACHE? “I would take that. I would like pickle juice off the bricks if I have to. I’ll take that.”
