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Atlanta to Kick Off NASCAR’s In-Season Tournament in 2025

(Photo by Alex Slitz/Getty Images)

Joshua Lipowski

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Royal T Grafix

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What’s Happening?

On Wednesday, Atlanta Motor Speedway announced its summer 2025 race date. They will host NASCAR’s first-ever In-Season Tournament race and the opening race of TNT’s coverage of NASCAR on June 28, 2025.

  • Atlanta Motor Speedway said in its press release that this would be the “Second NASCAR event” of the 2025 season for the track. This means Atlanta will once again have a spring race, but, they will no longer be the Playoff opener in 2025.
  • Atlanta Motor Speedway hosted one spring and one summer race every year from 2021 through 2023. In 2024, the summer event was moved to the second weekend of September as the Playoff opener after the NASCAR schedule was shifted due to the Olympic break.
  • Fans are excited by this change. Atlanta is a night race again, and it’s become one of the most popular tracks on the schedule.

Read Also:

The ENTIRE 2025 NASCAR $1 Million Tournament Explained

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Cup: Mid-Race Report from EchoPark Speedway

by Cody Williams

What’s Happening?

Two stages down at EchoPark Speedway! Austin Cindric won stage one while Bubba Wallace took Stage 2. Here’s what you need to know heading into the final stage.

  • There were a lot of comers and goers early on in the earlier stages of the race. Joey Logano led several laps early, leading Josh Berry, who led 50 laps last year in this race before and incident with 10 laps to go took him out of contention. Beyond them, the usual suspects were up front. Daytona 500 Champion, Tyler Reddick red the first handful of laps and the Hendrick trio of Chase Elliott, Kyle Larson, and William Byron looked pretty sporty early on.
  • Austin Cindric went on to win the opening stage of the race, leading 4 laps to take the green and white checkered flag. With this win, Cindric earned 10 points to pad him during the Race for the NASCAR Chase. Also earning stage points were Wallace (9), Larson (8), Byron (7), Elliott (6), Reddick (5), Busch (4), Logano (3), Zilisch (2), and Blaney (1). During the stage break, a couple of contenders had issues on pit road. Chase Elliott overshot his pit box and leader, Austin Cindric also had a slow stop.
  • The first caution for the incident came on Lap 81. Christopher Bell got a huge run on the inside down the backstretch and decided to force the issue. Heading into Turn 3, he was pushing 4 wide. Josh Berry let off and clipped the bumper of Ty Gibbs. Both plowed into the wall, their days over. Also getting a piece of that action were Denny Hamlin and Riley Herbst. Their damage was negligible.
  • The second caution for cause came at Lap 103 and it was a similar deal. In this situation, Riley Herbst lost the front end of his No. 35 Monster Energy Toyota. He tagged Austin Dillon from behind, and the two went around, receiving significant damage. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. was also caught up in the mess.
  • Kyle Busch’s 2025 woes followed him into 2026. After a solid first stage, Kyle Busch pulled up in front of Noah Gragson and got tagged from behind. He slid down the track and plowed into the inside wall. His day is over.
  • After a series of cautions sprinkled throughout the second stage, we ended Stage 2 on a major incident as well. As William Byron and Bubba Wallace drag raced to the line for the stage win, defending champion Kyle Larson threw a late block on Shane van Gisbergen, who had a headful of steam. This took both drivers out, sending them spinning in the infield. Bubba prevailed to win the stage (+10 points).
  • Also earning points in the stage are Byron (9), Briscoe (8), Reddick (7), Elliott (6), Hocevar (5), Preece (4), Blaney (3), Keselowski (2), Chastain (1).

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Cup: Busch Crashes Out at EchoPark Speedway

by Cody Williams

What’s Happening?

As the old saying goes, cautions breed cautions. Of course, most of the time that’s used in the closing laps of the race, not with just under 30 to go in Stage 2. Nevertheless, we had three back-to-back-to-back incidents, the latest of which involved Kyle Busch. Here’s what happened:

  • As you can see in the footage above, Kyle Busch gets a little squirely racing on the bottom. As a result, he shoots up the track into a small but open spot in front of Noah Gragson. Subsequently, the No. 8 of Busch let off. Not expecting it, Gragson got into the back of Busch, sending him around.
  • We saw a familiar sight in the NexGen era as we saw Kyle Busch’s No. 8 Cheddars Chevy spin out and make hard contact with the inside wall. His day was effectively done, joining the likes of B. J. McLeod, Ty Gibbs, Josh Berry, Riley Herbst, and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. in the garage.
  • Busch drew some criticism last week after how his Daytona 500 ended. Foreseeing the big crash on the last lap while he was running in the mid-20s, Busch let off, plummeting to the back of the pack. His spotter came over the radio and asked if he was out of gas, to which Busch replied ‘no’ and that he wasn’t going to drive into the wreck. Safely making his way through the inevitable carnage, he was able to salvage a 15th place finish.
  • Unfortunately, this is same-old-same-old for Kyle Busch’s career in the RCR era. After winning Saturday’s Truck race (third one in a row at the track), he was optimistic heading into today’s 400 miler. And though he showed promise early on, contending for the lead early, he once again ended the race with a check and release from the infield care center.

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Cup: Bell Forces the Issue, Takes Out Berry and Gibbs

by Cody Williams

What’s Happening?

After a clean but eventful Stage 1 was in the books, we got our first caution for incident on Lap 81. Fresh off the stage break, the aggression was still amped up. What triggered this incident in particular was Christopher Bell’s headful of steam juking below Josh Berry as they raced down the backstretch. Berry, not expecting to go 4 wide into the corner, lifted. Subsequently, he clipped the rear bumper of Ty Gibbs. This sent both Berry and Gibbs hard into the outside SAFER barrier. Here’s what happened.

  • Berry and Gibbs both were having decent days heading into this unfortunate event. Berry, though he wasn’t able to earn stage points in the first stage, did show speed. He ran solidly in the top 3 in the opening laps of the race before getting shuffled back to just outside the top 10.
  • Gibbs also showed some promise early on, in the thick of contention in the opening laps of the race. Unfortunately, he was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time when his teammate made a late move and tried to force 4 wide in Turn 3.
  • Denny Hamlin and Rilet Herbst, in turn, both received damage from this incident. For both drivers, it was minor and strictly cosmetic. Meanwhile, Gibbs and Berry were both hauled to the garage.
  • When it comes to how their 2025 seasons ended, it’s sort of a tale of two cities when it comes to Berry and Gibbs. Berry, on one hand, started off the 2025 season strong. He led a lot of laps at Atlanta last year and even won at Las Vegas. However, he petered out in the summer months and went on to have one of the worst Playoff showings in recent memory.
  • Gibbs was the complete opposite. He started agonizingly off the pace, running horribly in the first half of the season. Then, in the summer stretch, it was like a switch flipped. He started to run more consistently and even showed race-winning speed by season’s end. This isn’t the start to the season that either of these drivers wanted.

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