NASCAR In-Season Challenge: Drivers, seedings, matchups, races, dates and more

USA Today

7 hours ago

The NASCAR In-Season Challenge features five rounds and will award $1 million to the champion.
The NASCAR Cup Series is set to debut its inaugural In-Season Challenge, in which 32 drivers are seeded and bracketed into a tournament, like March Madness or a tennis draw.
The In-Season Challenge, which will run for five weeks, is actually a series of individual races within five larger races. The drivers will not only be competing to win the weekly race as they normally would, but they will also be facing off in head-to-head matchups with the goal of finishing better than their opponent in the race and advancing to the next round.
The drivers were seeded based on their finishes at three previous races – at Michigan, Mexico City and Pocono – with the bracket placing the top two seeds on opposite halves of the draw. That means if the tournament holds to form, the No. 1 and No. 2 seeds would not meet up until the final, presuming they both advanced through each round.
The winner of the inaugural In-Season Challenge will take home $1 million.
The first round begins Saturday, June 28 at Echo Park Speedway (formerly Atlanta Motor Speedway) and features 16 head-to-head matchups among the 32 drivers. Beat your head-to-head opponent and you advance to the second round. Sixteen drivers will be eliminated after the first round.
Does that sound complicated? If so, we have you covered with the list of seeds, how the rounds work, every first-round matchup and where and when each of the five In-Season Challenge races will take place.
NASCAR In-Season Challenge seedings
NASCAR In-Season Challenge matchups, rounds
The NASCAR In-Season Challenge puts the 32 drivers in a bracket, which begins with 16 first-round matchups.
The No. 1 seed faces the No. 32 seed in the first round, the No. 2 seed takes on the No. 31 seed, No. 3 matches up with the. No. 30 seed, etc. The losers of the head-to-head matchups will be eliminated, and the 16 winners will advance to the second round, where the winner of the No. 1 vs. No. 32 matchup will face the winner of the No. 16 vs. No. 17 matchup, the winner of the No. 2 vs. No. 31 matchup takes on the winner of the No. 15 vs. No. 18 matchup, etc.
Like March Madness, the tournament will move from a Round of 32 to a Sweet 16 to an Elite Eight to a Final Four and finally a championship race.
TOURNAMENT: Full visual NASCAR In-Season Challenge bracket
NASCAR In-Season Challenge first-round pairings
Here are the pairings for the first-round race at Echo Park Speedway (formerly Atlanta Motor Speedway) on Saturday, June 28. The winner of each head-to-head matchup advances to the next round.
Top half of draw
Bottom half of draw
NASCAR In-Season Challenge races
All times Eastern
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