First-round pairings for NASCAR Cup In-Season Challenge are set
LONG POND, Pa. — The matchups are set for the first round in the five-race in-season Cup tournament, which begins this weekend at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
Sunday's race at Pocono finalized the pairings. The top 32 drivers in points after the Nashville race earlier this month were locked into the tournament, which will play the winner $1 million.
Results from the past three races — Michigan, Mexico and Pocono — determined the seedings. The seedings were based on a driver's best result among those three races. Tiebreakers were broken by a driver's second-best result in those races.
Denny Hamlin earned the top seed for his win at Michigan and his runner-up finish at Pocono. Briscoe took the No. 2 seed off his Pocono win. Shane van Gisbergen won at Mexico but is not in the top 32 in driver points at Nashville and is not in the tournament.
Dustin Long,
Here are the first-round pairings (the driver who finishes best in each matchup at Atlanta advances)
No. 1 seed Denny Hamlin vs. No. 32 seed Ty Dillon
No. 2 seed Chase Briscoe vs. No. 31 seed Noah Gragson
No. 3 seed Chris Buescher vs. No. 30 seed Todd Gilliland
No. 4 seed Christopher Bell vs. No. 29 seed Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
No. 5 seed Chase Elliott vs. No. 28 seed Austin Dillon
No. 6 seed Ty Gibbs vs. No. 27 seed Justin Haley
No. 7 seed Ryan Blaney vs. No. 26 seed Carson Hocevar
No. 8 seed Alex Bowman vs. No. 25 seed Joey Logano
No. 9 seed Bubba Wallace vs. No. 24 Daniel Suarez
No. 10 seed Kyle Larson vs. No. 23 Tyler Reddick
No. 11 seed Michael McDowell vs. No. 22 seed AJ Allmendinger
No. 12 seed John Hunter Nemechek vs. No. 21 seed Josh Berry
No. 13 seed Ross Chastain vs. No. 20 seed Erik Jones
No. 14 seed Zane Smith vs. No. 19 seed Austin Cindric
No. 15 seed Ryan Preece vs. No. 18 seed William Byron
No. 16 seed Kyle Busch vs. No. 17 seed Brad Keselowski
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