(With a tip of the cap to the Chairman of the Board, the late Frank Sinatra.)
1. What If We Had a NASCAR In-Season Challenge and No One Noticed?
It’s not hard to think of NASCAR-related decisions for which popular opinion swings from one extreme to the other. Things like track repaves and the Next Gen car come to mind.
What isn’t as common is for a new wrinkle to do a full 360 as quickly as the NASCAR In-Season Challenge has already done. When first announced, it was hard to escape a feeling of skepticism as the entire concept seemed like a way for NASCAR to borrow something from another sport (in this case, the NBA) and shoehorn it in.
Then the marketing arrived, and it honestly was awesome.
With that as a backdrop, my fear was that everyone would be so hyped about the In-Season Challenge beginning at Atlanta that it would overwhelm the race itself. Instead, there were big stretches on Saturday night (June 28) where it was easy to forget it was going on at all.
And yes, there were things going on during this race. It would have been a shame if TNT focused on the Challenge over the ever-shifting narrative that unfolded on the track itself.
But that was never an issue. Even though the wrecks that knocked out half the field had a seismic impact on the tournament — including three of the top four seeds — viewers didn’t hear that much about it, and the post-race coverage took forever to get around to the implications.
The lingering impression was that the In-Season Challenge wasn’t that big a deal … right after NASCAR spent weeks telling us it was.
Lord knows there would be plenty of grumbling from fans, especially those who have followed the sport for years, if the In-Season Challenge sucked up all the oxygen around the Cup Series all summer. Yet there’s something to be said for committing to the bit, and that wasn’t what was going on during the event’s first week.
2. Also, Maybe It Wasn’t the Best Idea Having the Challenge Start at Atlanta
If you were planning on having a head-to-head, elimination-style racing battle for $1 million, you wouldn’t put any of the races at Daytona International Speedway or Talladega Superspeedway. Too much randomness, too much risk of having top seeds eliminated through no fault of their own. You definitely wouldn’t have a drafting-style race kick off the event.
But you know what? EchoPark Speedway in Atlanta is now configured in a way that puts it in the exact same category as the traditional high-banked superspeedways when it comes to field-destroying incidents. That became painfully (literally painful, in the case of Ryan Blaney and others) apparent when this weekend’s race reached its conclusion with only a handful of undamaged cars.
The fun part is that there were a number of first round In-Season Challenge upsets, and now there’s a legit sense of uncertainty around who might win. Was it fair to the drivers, though? Probably not.
Fortunately, this is an easy fix: Assuming the In-Season Challenge returns in 2026, just don’t make Atlanta part of the slate. It’s the right thing to do.
3. Suddenly, Everything is Fine in Chase Elliott Land
One item that did come up during this week’s race broadcast is how long it had been since Chase Elliott last won a Cup Series race. A 44-race winless streak is certainly not ideal, but it was more than that. Since coming home first in the fall Talladega race in 2022 — Elliott’s fifth win of that season — he managed just one trip to victory lane in his next 87 Cup starts.
What a difference a hometown win makes. For vibes of course, as Elliott is even more beloved in Georgia than he is overall, and his Atlanta victory was one of the more popular in recent memory. Beyond that, he’s in legitimately great shape to contend for a championship now.
Elliott has just five playoff points at the moment, which is less than nine other drivers, including the likes of Josh Berry. But that could be overcome by claiming the regular season championship, which is a huge help once the postseason begins.
That’s certainly a realistic goal for Elliott now, sitting in second place in the standings behind Hendrick Motorsports teammate William Byron. The No. 9 hasn’t run up front as often as the No. 24, but just a little swing in Elliott’s direction and he’d be right in it.
No one would have said that a few weeks ago, before everything broke right for Elliott’s team in Atlanta. The narrative around him for the rest of this season will certainly, and justifiably, be different now.
4. Oh, and Elliott Might Be the Favorite to Claim an Extra $1 Million Too
Why not win the In-Season Challenge too? Elliott has as good a chance as anyone.
All of the 2025 multiple race winners got swept away in the multi-car wrecks this weekend: Denny Hamlin, Kyle Larson and Christopher Bell are all out. So too are points leader Byron as well as Blaney, who has been very fast all season despite his generally rotten luck.
Among the drivers remaining, Elliott has enviable consistency on his side. He has zero DNFs and has ended up outside the top 15 just three times. In a head-to-head situation, that gives you a chance to win almost any matchup.
All of the upcoming Challenge tracks are places where he’s run well in the past too, especially Dover Motor Speedway, where Elliott has won more than once. I’m not saying it’s his to lose, but it would not be surprising to see him battling someone for $1 million at the Brickyard.
5. The Craziest Thing That Could Happen at Chicago Is …
With spots running out for drivers hoping to make the playoffs on points, they have to be rooting for one of the nine one-time winners to add another checkered flag to their collection. There are plenty of possibilities, including Elliott, Byron, Blaney and Joey Logano, who could do that at the Chicago Street Race.
There’s a more interesting choice, however, and that’s Shane van Gisbergen. We know he can because he’s already done it, famously claiming the inaugural Chicago event two seasons ago in his first Cup start.
Van Gisbergen has been pretty awful on ovals this season as he learns things the hard way. There was more evidence of that in Atlanta, where he was mostly a non-factor even with only half the cars left on the lead pack.
That figures to hamper him in the playoffs, where there are of course a bunch of ovals waiting. There is also one road course: the Charlotte Motor Speedway ROVAL in the Round of 12.
Getting to that round would be difficult for van Gisbergen, to be sure. Winning one more race would make it a bit easier thanks to the extra playoff points that would come with it.
He can do that at Chicago. It would be the second-most helpful thing for this season’s non-winners if they can’t get the win themselves, and potentially the most intriguing development to file away for down the road if it happens.
