INDIANAPOLIS – It was just a regular Nationwide Series race, but the location is what made it special: the most legendary venue in motorsports, Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
In the end, Ty Dillon – grandson of Sprint Cup owner Richard Childress – earned without question the greatest victory of his young career, capturing the Lilly Diabetes 250.
And kicked the butt of several Sprint Cup regulars in the process, holding off a phalanx that included runner-up Kyle Busch, Matt Kenseth (third), Joey Logano (fourth) and Kevin Harvick (fifth).
Not only that, Dillon led a steamroller of three RCR drivers in the top-7, with teammates Paul Menard (another Cup regular) finishing sixth and Brian Scott seventh.
And to top it all off, he won an extra $100,000 in the Nationwide Dash-4-Cash promotion, with the finals next Saturday night at Iowa Speedway.
“We got out front and she unleashed,” Dillon told ESPN of his race car. “I’m so happy. … Boy, I just about had it out there.”
Dillon could be seen wiping tears of happiness from his eyes after taking the win, and admitted he was praying as the final laps clicked off.
“It really hasn’t sunk in yet, but the emotions are incredible,” Dillon said when he came into the IMS media center afterward. “I remember when I finished third here in my second career Nationwide race a couple years ago.
“There’s something about this place that just feels right to me. I wasn’t going to let this thing go, I wasn’t going to let it slip. I gave it everything I had.”
Grandpa Richard — otherwise known as “Pop-Pop” by his grandsons — was understandably proud of his progeny.
“We’ve won here at Dale and Kevin and Paul,” Childress said. “I remembered I said he’d win one day here at Indy.”
Dillon drove the entire race with a broken air conditioning unit.
“When Kyle Busch is pushing you, he doesn’t mess up, so I knew I’d have to drive every lap perfectly,” he said. “If I had passed out going into one of these corners, at least I knew I’d given it the best I had.
“It’s just mind over matter at that point. I knew after the race I was going to be pretty wiped out, but in the moment, I gave it everything I had.”
He also had to worry about running out of fuel, but found just enough to get him to the finish before his tank ran dry on the celebratory burnout.
And with pole-sitter Kyle Busch stalking him for the final 23 laps, Dillon drove like he’s never driven before. Busch gave Dillon – whose younger brother Austin, a Sprint Cup rookie, was watching from the stands – a battle but his Toyota was no match to catch Dillon’s Chevrolet.
“When you’ve got the best guy in the business behind you, it’s tough,” Dillon said. “I’m glad to be able to win this (Dash-4-Cash) check.”
Dillon, just 22, got a great jump on a restart with 23 laps remaining, passed race leader Busch and never looked back in the 100-lap, 250-mile race around the 2.5-mile oval.
“Growing up as a young kid, you always want to come to Indy and win, and today we did,” Dillon’s crew chief, Danny Stockman Jr., told ESPN. “I wouldn’t be afraid to say that we might get on a roll here.”
To celebrate, Dillon did one of the best burnouts that the sport has seen in a long time, staying in place while leaving a deep mark right in front of the brick-laden start/finish line.
“That was really cool,” Childress said. “He’s had some close runs, but to come up here and win against some of the best.”
Kyle Larson finished eighth, followed by Trevor Bayne and Regan Smith.
Chris Buescher finished 11th, followed by Chase Elliott, David Ragan, Dylan Kwasniewski and Elliott Sadler in 15th.
Landon Cassill was 16th, followed by Dakoda Armstrong, Ryan Sieg, Brendan Gaughan and Ryan Reed.
(Editor’s note: This story on the Heart of Racing sports cars shootout for women is one in an occasional Motorsports Talk series focusing on women in racing during March, which is Women’s History Month.)
Heart of Racing driver and team manager Ian James says his daughter, Gabby, isn’t so interested in auto racing. But she is interested (as a New York-based journalist) in writing about the sport’s efforts and growth in gender equality
It’s a topic that also was brought up by James’ wife, Kim.
“They’re always saying, ‘Hey, you manage all these guys, and you help them, so why not a woman?’ ” Ian James told NBC Sports. “And I feel like there are a lot of women that haven’t had a fair crack at it in sports car racing.
“Our whole DNA at Heart of Racing is we give people opportunities in all types of situations where there’s been crew personnel or drivers. And I felt like we hadn’t really addressed the female driver situation. I felt like there was a void to give somebody a chance to really prove themselves.”
During the offseason, the team took a major step toward remedying that.
Hannah Grisham at the Heart of Racing shootout (Mike Levitt/LAT)
Heart of Racing held its first female driver shootout last November at the APEX Motor Club in Phoenix, Arizona, to select two women who will co-drive an Aston Martin Vantage GT4 in the SRO SprintX Championship.
The season will begin this weekend at Sonoma Raceway with Hannah Grisham and Rianna O’Meara-Hunt behind the wheel. The team also picked a third driver, 17-year-old Annie Rhule, for a 2023 testing program.
The Phoenix audition included 10 finalists who were selected from 130 applicants to the program, which has been fully underwritten by Heart of Racing’s sponsors.
“We didn’t want it to be someone who just comes from a socio-economic background that could afford to do it on their own course,” James said. “We can pick on pure talent. We’re committed to three years to do this and see if we can find the right person. I’m very hopeful.”
So is Grisham, a Southern California native who has been racing since she was 6 in go-karts and since has won championships in Mazda and Miata ladder series. She has several victories in the World Racing League GP2 (an amateur sports car endurance series). The last two years, Grisham has worked as a test driver for the Pirelli tire company (she lives near Pirelli’s U.S. headquarters in Rome, Georgia, and tests about 30 times a year).
Starting with the Sonoma during SprintX event weekends (which feature races Saturday and Sunday), she will split the Heart of Racing car with O’Meara-Hunt (a New Zealand native she got to know at the shootout).
“It’s huge; the biggest opportunity I’ve had in this sport,” Grisham, 23, told NBC Sports. “Now it’s up to me to perform how I know I can. But I’m super lucky to be with such an amazing team and have a good teammate. The Heart of Racing has a family vibe and energy to it that’s really amazing. It’s super exciting. It’s hard to put into words.”
Grisham is hopeful that a strong performance eventually could lead to a full-time ride with Heart of Racing. The team has full-time entries in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship and won the GTD category of the 2023 Rolex 24 at Daytona with the No. 27 Aston Martin Vantage GT3 piloted by James, Darren Turner, Roman DeAngelis and Marco Sorensen.
James said “there’s no guarantee” of placement in an IMSA entry for Grisham and O’Meara-Hunt, but “if they prove themselves, we’ll continue to help them throughout their career and our team. The GT3 program is an obvious home for that. If they get the opportunity and don’t quite make it, we’ll be looking for the next two. The next three years, we’ll cycle through drivers until we find the right one.”
Grisham described the two-day shootout as a friendly but intense environment. After a day of getting acclimated to their cars, drivers qualified on new tires the second day and then did two 25-minute stints to simulate a race.
Hannah Grisham reviews data with Heart of Racing sports car driver Gray Newell during the team’s shootout last November (Mike Levitt/LAT).
“Everyone was super nice,” she said. “Once everyone gets in the car, it’s a different level. A different switch gets turned on. Everyone was super nice; everyone was quick. I feel we had an adequate amount of seat time, which is definitely helpful.
“It’s always cool to meet more women in the sport because there’s not too many of us, even though there’s more and more. It’s always cool to meet really talented women, especially there were so many from all over the world.”
IMSA has celebrated female champions and race winners, notably Katherine Legge (who is running GTD full time this season with Sheena Monk for Gradient Racing). The field at Sebring and Daytona also included the Iron Dames Lamborghini (a female-dominated team).
The Heart of Racing’s female driver shootout drew interested candidates from around the world (Mike Levitt/LAT).
James believes “a breakout female driver will be competing with the best of them” in the next five years as gender barriers slowly recede in motorsports.
“It’s been a male-dominated sport,” James said. “It’s still a very minute number of women drivers compared to the guys. I’m sure back in the day there were physical hurdles about it that were judged. But now the cars are not very physical to drive, and it’s more about technique and mental strength and stuff like that, and there’s no reason a girl shouldn’t do just as well as a guy. What we’re just trying to achieve is that there isn’t an obvious barrier to saying ‘Hey, I can’t hire a guy or a girl.’ We just want to put girls in front of people and our own program that are legitimate choices going forward for people.”
“There’s been some really good female drivers, but a lot of them just haven’t been able to sustain it, and a lot of that comes from sponsorship. I think (with the shootout), there’s no pressure of raising money and worrying about crash damage. We’ve taken care of all that so they can really focus on the job at hand.”
Funding always has been a hurdle for Grisham, who caught the racing bug from her father, Tom, an off-road driver who raced the Baja 1000 several times.
“I don’t come from a lot of money by any means,” she said. “So since a young age, I’ve always had to find sponsorships and get people to help me, whether it was buying tires, paying for entry fees, paying for the shipment of a car to an actual race. Literally knocking on the doors of people or businesses in my town.
“So yeah, it’s definitely something I’ve always struggled with and held me back because the sport revolves so much around money. So again to get this opportunity is insane.”
Rianna O’Meara-Hunt was one of two women selected by the Heart of Racing to drive in the SRO SprintX Championship this year (Mike Levitt/LAT).
Grisham credits racing pioneer Lyn St. James (an Indy 500 veteran and sports car champion) as a role model who has helped propel her career. She was hooked by the sights, smells and sounds of racing but also its competitive fire.
“There’s a zone you get in, that subconscious state of mind when you’re driving. It’s like addictive almost. I love it. Also I’m just a very competitive person as I think most race car drivers are.
“For sure I want to stay with the Heart of Racing. Obviously, I’m still getting to know everyone, but it’s a super family vibe. That’s how I grew up in the sport with just my dad and I wrenching on the cars. That’s what I love about this sport is all the amazing people you meet. And I think this is one of the most promising teams in this country. For sure, I want to learn as much as I can from them and hopefully continue. I feel so lucky and grateful to be one of those chosen.”
