The first round of the NASCAR in-season tournament begins Saturday night at EchoPark Speedway (aka Atlanta Motor Speedway) as teams now have their path to the $1 million bonus.

Atlanta kicks off the new event before it makes stops in Chicago, Sonoma, Dover, and finishes at Indianapolis. The tournament is a simple head-to-head matchup for drivers, with the highest finisher among them advancing.

The top seeds were Denny Hamlin, Chase Briscoe, Chris Buescher and Christopher Bell. NASCAR determined the seeding by a driver’s best finish from the three races held at Michigan, Mexico City and Pocono. Hamlin, of course, won at Michigan, and Briscoe won at Pocono.

The first-round matchups are:

(No. 1) Denny Hamlin vs (No. 32) Ty Dillon

(No. 2) Chase Briscoe vs (No. 31) Noah Gragson

(No. 3) Chris Buescher vs (No. 30) Todd Gilliland

(No. 4) Christopher Bell vs (No. 29) Ricky Stenhouse Jr.

(No. 5) Chase Elliott vs (No. 28) Austin Dillon

(No. 6) Ty Gibbs vs (No. 27) Justin Haley

(No. 7) Ryan Blaney vs (No. 26) Carson Hocevar

(No. 8) Alex Bowman vs (No. 25) Joey Logano

(No. 9) Bubba Wallace vs (No. 24) Daniel Suarez

(No. 10) Kyle Larson vs (No. 23) Tyler Reddick

(No. 11) Michael McDowell vs (No. 22) AJ Allmendinger

(No. 12) John Hunter Nemechek vs (No. 21) Josh Berry

(No. 13) Ross Chastain vs (No. 20) Erik Jones

(No. 14) Zane Smith vs (No. 19) Austin Cindric

(No. 15) Ryan Preece vs (No. 18) William Byron

(No. 16) Kyle Busch vs (No. 17) Brad Keselowski

TNT Sports will carry the duration of the tournament. The channel begins its five-race portion of Cup Series coverage this weekend (Saturday, 7pm ET). They will also offer an alternate broadcast for fans interested (on truTV) that is hosted by Larry McReynolds and Jeff Burton. They will break down the storylines and bracket each week.

By Dan Gelston

AP Sports Writer

LONG POND, Pa. — Chase Briscoe returned to victory lane Sunday at Pocono Raceway, conserving fuel down the stretch to hold off Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Denny Hamlin for his first win with his new race team.

Briscoe raced his way into an automatic spot in NASCAR’s playoffs with the win and gave the No. 19 Toyota its first victory since 2023 when Martin Truex Jr. had the ride. Briscoe lost his job at the end of last season at Stewart-Haas Racing when the team folded and he was tabbed to replace Truex in the four-car JGR field.

Hamlin, who holds the track record with seven wins, appeared on the brink of reeling in Briscoe over the final, thrilling laps only to have not enough in the No. 11 Toyota to snag that eighth Pocono win.

“It was just so hard to have a guy chasing you, especially the guy that’s the greatest of all time here,” Briscoe said.

Briscoe made his final pit stop on lap 119 of the 160-lap race, while Hamlin — who returned after missing last week’s race following the birth of his son — made his final stop on 120. Hamlin’s team radioed to him that they believed Briscoe would fall about a half-lap short on fuel — only for the first-year JGR driver to win by 0.682 seconds.

Briscoe, who won an Xfinity Series race at Pocono in 2020, raced to his third career Cup victory and first since Darlington in 2024.

Briscoe has been on a bit of a hot streak, and had his fourth top-10 finish over the last six races, including a seventh-place finish in last week’s ballyhooed race in Mexico City.

He became the 11th driver to earn a spot in the 16-driver field with nine races left until the field is set and made a winner again of crew chief James Small. Small stayed on the team through Truex’s final winless season and Briscoe’s winless start to this season.

“It’s been a tough couple of years,” Small said. “We’ve never lost belief, any of us.”

Hamlin finished second. Ryan Blaney, Chris Buescher and Chase Elliott completed the top five.

Briscoe, a third-generation dirt racer from Indiana, gave JGR its 18th Cup victory at Pocono.

“I literally grew up racing my sprint car video game in a Joe Gibbs Racing Home Depot uniform,” Briscoe said. “To get Coach in victory lane after them taking a chance on me, it’s so rewarding truthfully. Just a big weight off my shoulders. I’ve been telling my wife the last two weeks, I have to win. To finally come here and do it, it has been a great day.”

The race was delayed 2 hours, 10 minutes by rain and the conditions were muggy by the time the green flag dropped. Briscoe led 72 laps and won the second stage.

Briscoe wrote before the race on social media, “Anybody going from Pocono to Oklahoma City after the race Sunday?” The Pacers fan wasn’t going to make it to Game 7 of the NBA Finals.

He’ll certainly settle for a ride to victory lane.

Clean race

Carson Hocevar made a clean pass of Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and two feuding drivers battled without incident on restarts as they appeared to race in peace after a pair of recent wrecks on the track threatened to spill into Pocono.

Stenhouse’s threat to beat up his racing rival after last weekend’s race in Mexico City but cooler heads prevailed back in the United States. Hocevar finished 18th and Stenhouse 30th.

Ouch

There was a minor scare on pit road when AJ Allmendinger struck a tire in the carrier’s hand with his right front side and sent it flying into the ribs of another team’s crew member in the pit ahead of him. Jonpatrik Kealey, the rear tire changer on Shane van Gisbergen’s race team, was knocked on all fours but finished work on van Gisbergen’s pit stop.

Brake time

Bubba Wallace, Michael McDowell and Riley Herbst all had their races spoiled by brake issues.

“It was a scary feeling for sure,” Herbst said. “I was just starting to get tight, just a bad adjustment on my part. Getting into (turn) one, the brakes just went to the floor. A brake rotor exploded and I was along for the ride.”

Up next

NASCAR heads to Atlanta. Christopher Bell won the first race at the track this season in March.

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• Chase Briscoe won the Great American Getaway 400 at Pocono Raceway, his third Cup Series victory.
• The NASCAR Cup Series moves to Atlanta Motor Speedway next weekend, airing on TNT.

Chase Briscoe has been known as a Saturday guy in recent weeks, winning three straight poles.