What’s Happening?

At EchoPark Speedway (formerly the Atlanta Motor Speedway) we were treated to the first of 5 In-Season challenge races. This bracket, a mid-season style tournament, seeded the full-time chartered drivers 1-32 into head-to-head matchup. The last one standing receives a $1 million paycheck and all the bragging rights that comes with winning such a tournament.

• The In-Season Challenge, which was partially Denny Hamlin’s idea, was a concept created for the summer stretch of the 2025 NASCAR season. It was also to give new broadcast partner, TNT Sports, something to promote over the stretch. This gives all of NASCAR’s broadcast partners something special during their portion of the schedule. For example, FOX has the Daytona 500, Prime has the Coca-Cola 600, TNT has the In-Season Challenge, and NBC has the Playoffs.
• Historically, the summer stretch of the NASCAR season can be a grind. This is typically when we see viewership fall off the most. With TNT returning to NASCAR, they’re using their experience with the NBA and their in-season tournaments as a way to hopefully capture more viewership over this stretch.
• With wildcard races like Atlanta and Chicago in the mix, there was a very good chance that we’d see some upsets in the matchups, adding to the drama.

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Atlanta Results

With Atlanta officially in the books, we have our first crop of results from the In-Season Bracket Challenge. Due to the nature of superspeedway-style racing, we saw a number of upsets. The following were the head-to-head matchups at Atlanta with the winners being depicted in BOLD type.

• #1 Denny Hamlin vs. #32 Ty Dillon
• #2 Chase Briscoe vs. #31 Noah Gragson
• #3 Chris Buescher vs. #30 Todd Gilliland
• #4 Christopher Bell vs #29 Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
• #5 Chase Elliott vs. #28 Austin Dillon
• #6 Ty Gibbs vs. #27 Justin Haley
• #7 Ryan Blaney vs. #26 Carson Hocevar
• #8 Alex Bowman vs. #25 Joey Logano
• #9 Bubba Wallace vs. #24 Daniel Suarez
• #10 Kyle Larson vs. #23 Tyler Reddick
• #11 Michael McDowell vs. #22 A. J. Allmendinger
• #12 John Hunter Nemechek vs. #21 Josh Berry
• #13 Ross Chastain vs. #20 Erik Jones
• #14 Zane Smith vs. #19 Austin Cindric
• #15 Ryan Preece vs. #18 William Byron
• #16 Kyle Busch vs #17 Brad Keselowski

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Chicago Results

Chicago was yet another wild race for our In-Season Challenge. Most notably is the Cinderella story of Ty Dillon as seed #32 still alive heading into Race 3! Here are the results out of Chicago.

• #3 Chris Buescher vs. #14 Zane Smith
• #5 Chase Elliott vs. #12 John Hunter Nemechek
• #6 Ty Gibbs vs. #22 A. J. Allmendinger
• #8 Alex Bowman vs. #9 Bubba Wallace
• #15 Ryan Preece vs. #31 Noah Gragson
• #17 Brad Keselowski vs. #32 Ty Dillon
• #20 Erik Jones vs. #29 Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
• #23 Tyler Reddick vs. #26 Carson Hocevar

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Matchups Heading into Sonoma

Two races down, three to go! Here are the matchups heading into the twists and turns of Sonoma Raceway:

• #6 Ty Gibbs vs. #14 Zane Smith
• #8 Alex Bowman vs. #32 Ty Dillon
• #12 John Hunter Nemechek vs. #20 Erik Jones
• #15 Ryan Preece vs. #23 Tyler Reddick

We had a lot of upsets the last two weeks. Considering that we’re heading to another wildcard in Sonoma, look for some more before we get down to the final four.

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