As NASCAR’s summer stretch heats up, one of the storylines that will come into play will be the sport’s first-ever in-season tournament, or In-Season Challenge as it’s officially named.
Over the next three races at Michigan, Mexico City and Pocono, the 32 drivers that qualified for the tournament will be seeded by virtue of their finishes in those races. The tournament will begin on June 28 at the EchoPark Speedway, running through a five-race stretch on the Cup Series calendar before wrapping up at Indianapolis Motor Speedway with the Brickyard 400.
But the tournament isn’t the only thing on the minds of teams as they prepare for races on a weekly basis. Many drivers, such as RFK Racing’s Chris Buescher, are in the thick of battling for a berth in the Cup Series playoffs. Only 58 points separate the 13th-place driver, Chase Briscoe, from the 20th-place driver, AJ Allmendinger, in the standings. Of the 16 slots that make up the playoff field, seven are still up for grabs with 12 races remaining in the regular-season.
But with $1 million and bragging rights on the line during the In-Season Challenge, could drivers and teams – especially those near the playoff cut line – think differently about race weekends this summer?
“I don’t think it’s going to change much at all,” Buescher said in a virtual news conference on Wednesday. “It’s a lot on the line. A million dollars at the end of it, I’m sure teams are taking note of it. But our season is way bigger than that. It’s not something (where) you’re willing to do anything that will come at a detriment to racing for a championship, which means making the playoffs first.”
“I don’t see that being something that is going to affect anything leading into a race weekend,” Buescher continued. “Maybe there’s a moment during a race where you can take a chance when you’re in a scenario where you’re racing one other car through the bracket. If there’s a moment where you can make something happen and it doesn’t come at a penalty, maybe (you make a move), but I highly doubt you see anything change because of that.”
Buescher knows all too well what it’s like to race for his playoff life on a weekly basis. In 2024, heartbreaking losses at Kansas and Darlington were the difference in Buescher missing out on the playoff field by just six points.
Buescher is currently eight points above the cut line as the Cup Series heads to Michigan for Sunday’s FireKeepers Casino 400, a race Buescher won in 2023.
All quotations obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted.
