Dillon, JHN, Reddick, Gibbs Advance to In-Season Tournament Final 4

Dillon would finish 17th, while Bowman would be eliminated from the In-Season Tournament with a 19th-place result. Dillon and Bowman had a light-hearted exchange on pit road following the race.

“It was a rough couple of laps there," Dillon explained. "Alex and I race really clean. I told him – man, if it wasn’t for the million dollars, I probably wouldn’t have done that, but I had to. It’s been an incredible run for this No. 10 Kaulig Racing Chevrolet team. We’ve worked so hard for this opportunity. I can’t thank Matt Kaulig, Chris Rice, Ty Norris and Kaulig Racing for giving me the opportunity to shine again. I’ve worked so hard to get here and I’m just grateful. All of our partners that are on board, this has just been so much fun."

The Kaulig Racing driver, who has recorded finishes of eighth, 20th, and 17th in the tournament, has now knocked off No. 1 seed Denny Hamlin, No. 17 seed Brad Keselowski, and Bowman, the No. 8 seed. Now, the driver's focus shifts to the 1-mile high-banked concrete oval in Delaware.

"We’re going to give it all we’ve got at Dover; put pressure on the guys. I think you’ve seen through this that our team doesn’t quit," Dillon said. "I saw the No. 48 there at the end, and I knew it was our opportunity to race hard and go get him. Just proud of this team’s effort.”

In addition to Dillon, the biggest Cinderella Story in the tournament, advancing, John Hunter Nemechek is the other longshot driver to work his way through the the Final Four of the bracket.

Nemechek, who ran near the front early in the race before being spun out, finished 28th. However, it was just enough to advance as his LEGACY MOTOR CLUB teammate Erik Jones came home in 29th.

Nemechek, the No. 12 seed in the tournament will be matched up against Dillon next weekend at Dover Motor Speedway, which means one of the unlikely stories remaining in the tournament will advance to the $1 million winner-take-all contest in the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in two weeks.

On the other side of the bracket, No. 6 seed Ty Gibbs was able to move on to the next round of the tournament with a solid seventh-place finish compared to a 27th-place run by No. 14 seed Zane Smith, who he was matched up against this weekend at Sonoma.

Gibbs has worked his way through the tournament with finishes of 14th at Atlanta, second at the Chicago Street Course, and seventh Sunday at Sonoma.

“Yeah, it is pretty cool," Gibbs said of moving on to the next round. "We will see what we can do. Overall, we had an okay day. Our SAIA number 54 Camry – we needed to make some adjustments, and I need to do a better job. We had an okay day.”

Next weekend, Gibbs will be matched up against another heavy weight as Tyler Reddick, the No. 23 seed, was able to work his way past Ryan Preece, the No. 15 seed, with a sixth-place finish at Sonoma. Preece was eliminated with a 12th-place result.

Reddick, who is usually one of the best road course racers in the series, said he struggled in Sunday's race

“Today was a bit of a struggle, honestly, for the Chumba Casino Toyota. We just kind of went backwards – we slid back throughout the whole day and didn’t really get stage points," Reddick explained. "We just kept fighting all day long. We put tires on there and was able to get through the chaos. We had a shot at fifth, just didn’t want to use Christopher (Bell) up on that last corner, so we settled for sixth.”

As it turned out, sixth was more than enough for Reddick to advance another round in the NASCAR In-Season Challenge.