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As I watch the pre-race show for the NASCAR, I figured now is a great time to research what we need to know about the challenge. If you haven’t heard about it yet, I blame NASCAR for not doing a better job advertising and marketing this event. This in-season challenge is exactly something NASCAR comes up with to put new eyeballs on the sport. It gives an added element, regardless of what you think of gambling, this is something that gamblers salivate over. This challenge is a bracket of thirty-two drivers who will compete over the next five weeks in a single elimination style tournament. Each driver will race thirty-nine other competitors, as well as a matchup against one other driver. Whoever finishes worse between the two is eliminated from the challenge, so on and so forth over the next five races. The seeding was not based on their overall points totals, but it was determined by the results of the last three races. For a full layout of the bracket and for your chance to win, you can visit the following link.
While I admit I was skeptical about the thought of this in-season challenge at first, I find myself slightly excited about it as we get closer to race time. Let’s take a look at a few of the matchups. Denny Hamlin is the one seed matching up against Ty Dillon the thirty-two seed. To be honest, the only way Ty Dillon wins this matchup is if Denny Hamlin does not finish the race or has mechanical failure. The next matchup is a very intriguing one between Kyle Busch the sixteen seed and Brad Keselowski the seventeen seed. This would compare to the eight and nine matchups in the March Madness tournament. Either team in those seeds has a chance to win the game and advance, but neither driver has to win to advance. They just have to finish ahead of the other so keep a close eye on the Busch/Keselowski matchup. Just to name a few more matchups we have:
- 8 seed Bowman vs. 25 seed Joey Logano
- 9 seed Wallace vs. 24 seed Suarez
- 12 seed Nemechek vs 21 seed Berry
- 5 seed Elliot vs 28 seed Dillon
- 4 seed Bell vs 29 seed Stenhouse, Jr
- 2 seed Briscoe vs 31 seed Noah Gragson
- 7 seed Blaney vs 26 seed Hocevar
- 10 seed Larson vs 23 seed Reddick
That isn’t all the matchups, but I wanted to share a few that I think could be the most entertaining. As this challenge progresses, the matchups will only get more entertaining, so I highly encourage new NASCAR fans and even life-long NASCAR fans, tune in! The reason these matchups are intriguing is because there are a few that could be major upsets. Daniel Suarez is really good at Atlanta, now known as Echopark Motorspeedway, so he could definitely upset nine seed Bubba Wallace. Carson Hocevar is sneaky good and could possibly upset Blaney. Chase Elliot should be able to make easy work of Austin Dillon, but that’s why we run the races.
As I said, I was iffy about this NASCAR In-Season Challenge at first, but after doing research I have learned that this could be really great for the sport of NASCAR. I do wish they would have done more advertising and marketing on this event. If people were watching sooner, the Ludacris intro would have gotten a lot of people fired up to kick this thing off. So, this is JD, the Southern Fried Gentleman of Southern Fried Sports, urging you to tune into the NASCAR In-Season Challenge.
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