At EchoPark Speedway (Atlanta), the field of 32 was cut in half as NASCAR’s five-week in-season challenge officially got underway. Even with the expected chaos of a drafting track, no one expected a 23-car pileup that would help the No. 32 and No. 31 seeds defeat the No. 1 and No. 2 seeds.

There are many underdogs left while big names will be forced to sit on the sidelines for the rest of the competition. No fan can win the $1 million prize, as literally every bracket was busted at Atlanta, but one of the remaining 16 drivers will still go on to collect $1 million for themselves.

Round 2 takes place at the Chicago Street Course and with rain potentially impacting the event again, anything can happen.

Here’s a look at the eight matchups and who we think will advance into Round 3 at Sonoma…

Note: The NASCAR in-season challenge only offers a monetary prize and does not impact the championship

Ty Dillon, Kaulig Racing Chevrolet

Photo by: Sean Gardner / Getty Images

The bottom seed lives to fight another day! After ousting Denny Hamlin at Atlanta, Dillon will also eliminate Keselowski at Chicago, but he won’t need a 23-car pileup this time. Dillon is a solid road racer and ran inside the top ten for a large portion of the Cup race in Mexico City. He doesn’t have as much experience as Keselowski — the 2012 NASCAR Cup champion — but Brad has struggled on road and street courses in the Next Gen era. 

Alex Bowman, Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet

Photo by: Sean Gardner / Getty Images

It’s hard to bet against the defending winner of the event. Wallace has shown clear improvement on road and street courses, but Bowman is clearly on another level at these types of tracks. Of course, Bowman won this race last year, but he also scored a top ten at COTA and a top five in Mexico City in 2025. Meanwhile, Wallace’s best result at Chicago is 13th.

Chase Elliott, Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet

Photo by: Sean Gardner / Getty Images

Fresh off a big win at his home track in Atlanta, Elliott is the definitive favorite over Nemechek. While John-Hunter finished a very strong sixth in Mexico City, Elliott was on the podium. And if not for a Lap 1 incident at COTA, he could have contended for the win there. He also has a podium finish on the streets of Chicago while Nemechek placed 35th in his only start there.

Erik Jones, LEGACY MOTOR CLUB Toyota

Photo by: James Gilbert / Getty Images

Stenhouse has a best finish of sixth at Chicago while Jones has only reached 16th, but Jones is our pick here. It will be a bit of a toss-up as these drivers seem equally matched when it comes to skill level at road/street courses, and it may come down to who can keep their nose clean while in the middle of the pack.

Ryan Preece, Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing Ford

Photo by: Jonathan Bachman – Getty Images

Gragson is no road racer and infamously crashed several times in the rain during the inaugural Chicago Street Course race. These two drivers have shown similar speed at Chicago in the past, but Preece has really upped his game in 2025. He won a stage at COTA, qualified on the front row in Mexico City, and has been remarkably consistent this year. If both of these drivers stay out of trouble, Preece takes this battle.

Tyler Reddick, 23XI Racing Toyota

Photo by: Sean Gardner / Getty Images

Reddick absolutely could have won this race one year ago if he hadn’t made an unforced error and tagged the wall while pursuing Bowman. Even still, he managed to score a runner-up finish while Hocevar ended the day outside the top 20 last year. He also has a lot of enemies on track, which will make things extra difficult for him this weekend. Even if no one does anything, it’s a major distraction.

Ty Gibbs, Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota

Photo by: Krista Jasso / Getty Images

This will be a fascinating battle. Gibbs’ 2025 season has been a struggle, but he showed incredible pace in Mexico and looked like the only driver who could even put up a fight against Van Gisbergen. And then you have Allmendinger, who is one of the best road racers in the sport. However, Chicago has not been very kind to him with a best finish of 17th. Meanwhile, of the drivers who have run both Cup races at Chicago, Gibbs is tied with Michael McDowell for the best average finish after placing ninth in 2023 and third in 2024.

Chris Buescher, Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing Ford

Photo by: Sean Gardner / Getty Images

Buescher finished tenth in the first Cup race in Chicago and then 20th last year. Smith beat Buescher in 2024 and could definitely beat him again, but Buescher is also a proven winner at road courses. He beat van Gisbergen in a head-to-head fight for the win at Watkins Glen last year, and few can claim such a feat since SVG has come over to NASCAR.

Julie Giese has become a familiar face in Chicago.

“It is funny,” Giese, the president of NASCAR’s Chicago street race told RACER. “I go to the grocery store and the first year, especially, it was like, ‘Oh, you’re the NASCAR lady.’ It’s fun to hear that. As we go into year three, people recognize it, they’re about it and they have a clear understand and are like, ‘We can’t wait to see it again.’”

It is the third consecutive year NASCAR is bringing its Xfinity Series and Cup Series teams to Chicago. The streets around Grant Park will be shut down as cars race next to high-rise buildings and past Buckingham Fountain. But it is the last year of the contract with the city of Chicago, although there are option years for the two sides to agree to keep the race on the schedule.

Giese has been there since the beginning, an integral part of the team responsible for the event. But she’s also the face of the event as someone who has been on the ground, attending meetings, answering questions and doing community outreach, having moved to Chicago to be based there.

“It’s been really rewarding,” Giese said. “It’s been a great learning experience. I’ve learned so much these three years here in Chicago whether it’s community outreach, the community engagement, the impact initiatives that we’ve been doing year-round or enjoying the city. I’ve enjoyed it. I’m from the Midwest, so it’s nice to be closer to home and that Midwest environment.”

Giese is enjoying being the “NASCAR lady” in Chicago. Geoff Stellfox/Getty Images

From the start, it was important for Giese and NASCAR to be neighbors of the residents of Chicago, not transplants that come in once a year, disrupt things and leave. Not only did NASCAR set up an office in Chicago, but there are events the sport gets involved with throughout the year that keeps them in front of locals while continuing to show off the sport.

Giese said as the event has grown over the last three years, the conversations that might have been an hour long in year one are now just a few minutes. Or a simple check-in of everyone acknowledging they are good and don’t need anything. And the education process included everything from what NASCAR is to answering questions about race cars hitting buildings.

“I was really the only voice explaining what to expect,” Giese said. “No one had seen it. I hadn’t seen it, but I was talking to these different organizations or resident buildings, and I had a computer model. That was proof of concept really. Then going from year one, everyone sees it … and going into year two, we had those same conversations we had in year one. We weren’t going to back away from any of those, so we continue to better, and in those conversations, we were hearing, ‘I watched it on television and our city looked pretty special and it looked amazing. This is great for our city.’

“Moving to this year, we’re still doing the exact same outreach that we’ve done from year one, so several 100 conversations, meetings, touch points, but they’re much more abbreviated. Everyone has a good understanding. The local residents and buildings around the footprint, they know when we come with their vehicle placards to get to their buildings easily what that means. They know what to expect.”

The Chicago course was a leap into the unknown, but both NASCAR and the city of Chicago now know what to expect. Quinn Harris/Getty Images

NASCAR also shortened the build time for the course for the third straight year. Giese said the build time this year is 42% less than it was in the first year. Some even approached the NASCAR team asking if it was going to be done in time for this weekend’s events since the build started two weeks later than previous years.

A street course also provides evolution flexibility from year to year based on feedback. One of the biggest for this year is trying to cut down the amount of walking by putting a lot of the main experiences closer together. There was also thought put into the viewing areas and fans being able to walk around the course and see the cars on track from different vantage points. Additionally, kids 12 and under are free for the entire weekend.

The future of NASCAR in Chicago – and Giese – is unknown, and those conversations will continue once the third annual event comes to a close. However, it’s arguably been a success for both sides for multiple reasons.

“It drives economic impact and tourism to the city of Chicago, as well as [being] a commercial for the entire weekend on an international television for the city,” Giese said. “Then for us, it’s bringing NASCAR to a new audience. That first year, over 80% of our attendees were at their very first NASCAR race. Last year, I believe it was close to 70. We’re tracking in and around that area again this year.

“I think those are the two big metrics. Obviously, [NASCAR] working with all the different neighborhoods across the city, the community engagement of over $5 million in initiatives over these three years from a giveback perspective. That’s something I enjoy most about NASCAR and working in NASCAR is the work done in the communities where we race. Chicago is no different.”

Ryan Blaney Doesn’t Hold Back On NASCAR, Formula 1 Rivalry originally appeared on The Spun.

The NASCAR Cup Series held the Quaker State 400 on a Saturday, opening the door for Formula 1 to have Sunday all by itself. That made things a bit interesting as far as the ratings were concerned.

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Saturday’s broadcast was the first NASCAR Cup Series race on TNT since July 2014. It turns out 1.6 million viewers tuned in for the race at EchoPark Speedway in Atlanta. Chase Elliott came out on top, edging out Brad Keselowski, Alex Bowman and the rest of the field.

Lando Norris, meanwhile, continued his excellent season with McLaren by coming in first place at the Austrian Grand Prix.

Even though Formula 1 is on the rise, NASCAR won the ratings battle. However, it wasn’t the type of victory media members were willing to celebrate.

“Ugh, Saturday night NASCAR races just can’t seem to pull numbers. NASCAR says it got an average of 1.6 million viewers for the Atlanta race,” Jeff Gluck of The Athletic wrote. “Also, if you were wondering about F1 viewership on the F1 movie’s premiere weekend, the Austria race got 1.1 million viewers (a record for that race, but only up two percent over last year).”

On Wednesday morning, Ryan Blaney responded to Gluck’s remarks about NASCAR’s TV ratings.

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“So, we got 500k more folks tuned in,” Blaney replied. “Why do people make it out to be a bad thing? We crush the parade every week, so why do we get down in the dumps by this? Nascar is currently crushing it.”

While we can’t fault Blaney for defending the Cup Series, it’s worth noting that Saturday’s ratings were way below the season average (2.88 million viewers through 18 races).

NASCAR will try to redeem itself on Sunday when the Cup Series heads over to the Chicago Street Course.

Related: NASCAR Fans Calling For Change To Cup Series Schedule

Ryan Blaney Doesn’t Hold Back On NASCAR, Formula 1 Rivalry first appeared on The Spun on Jul 2, 2025

This story was originally reported by The Spun on Jul 2, 2025, where it first appeared.

NASCAR is back in Chicago this weekend, and it brought a new broadcaster.

TNT takes over coverage of the Cup Series Chicago Street Race from NBC, which aired it the last two years. Before debuting last week in Atlanta, TNT hadn’t carried a NASCAR race since 2014. Now it has the herculean task of covering a 12-turn street race through a metropolitan area.

“This is more than a race,” TNT analyst Steve Letarte said. “It’s truly a spectacle.”

Letarte was an analyst for the race on NBC, which broadcast “radio style,” meaning commentators were positioned around the track. Letarte was part of the main booth, and that’s where he’ll be Sunday for TNT’s traditional broadcast with analyst Dale Earnhardt Jr. and play-by-play voice Adam Alexander.

“We’ll be in basically a production booth,” Letarte said. “There’s not really a location there that gives you a lot of overview, but that’s not anything new. Most road courses we call from a booth anyway.

“I think it’ll look different than NBC, as it should. I think NBC did a really nice job, but I think TNT proved at Atlanta that they also do a very nice job.”

The trio called Prime Video’s five-race package, which preceded TNT’s as part of NASCAR’s new media deal. NBC takes the baton in August.

Also new is the Cup Series’ in-season challenge, a head-to-head tournament that’s made up of TNT’s races. The Chicago race marks the Sweet 16, with drivers competing for a $1 million prize.

What isn’t changing is the course, which is a challenge for the production crew to cover.

“Our director, Steve Fiorello, is phenomenal in the prep work for each track: camera positions, blind spots,” said John O’Connor, TNT vice president and executive producer. “Talking to Dale about what can we expect, he said you’re going to have a lot of blind turns. The drivers come down, everything feels like they’re in a tunnel.

“The challenges are, can we make the viewers feel what the drivers are feeling? Can we get close enough in these areas and these corners, these blind turns with these cameras to make it feel like what the drivers are seeing and feeling.”

To do that, Fiorello will have almost 50 cameras at his disposal, including 20 manned and unmanned cameras around the track. Cranes of 55 and 60 feet will have a camera on the course. Six cars will have cameras inside, and four handheld cameras will roam the track and pits, following reporters Alan Cavanna, Danielle Trotta and Marty Snider. A helicopter, drone and the Goodyear Blimp will provide aerial coverage.

After two water-logged races, Chicago is due for a nice day. But rain is in the forecast Sunday.

“We talked about it,” O’Connor said. “We’re ready in terms of doing the broadcast because they’ll race in that rain. There’s an added excitement to it. You don’t see NASCAR cars driving in the rain very often. It’s a unique look.

“The cameras are fine, the technology is fine. There’s nothing that our tech teams can’t pull off and are prepared for in those areas. It’s just the racing and how we adapt to that.”

Like NBC did, TNT will lean into the race’s setting, showcasing the city and skyline. The pre- and post-race crew of host Shannon Spake and analysts Parker Kligerman and Jamie McMurray will appear on TNT’s set adjacent to Buckingham Fountain in Grant Park.

“As far as street courses go, the setting is as amazing as we all expected it to be, if not better,” Letarte said. “My family comes to this race. They don’t really come to any other races, but they’re coming here because it’s set in a city, you walk to the racetrack, it has concerts.

“The whole weekend is a true spectacle of sports and entertainment, and it’s our job at TNT — and I’m sure we will — to bring that event into the living room and make everybody know that they’re watching not only a race but a big event.”

Remote patrol

CW affiliate WGN 9 will carry the NASCAR Xfinity Series Chicago Street Race at 3:30 p.m. Saturday. Adam Alexander, Parker Kligerman and Jamie McMurray will call it. Pre-race coverage begins at 2:30. WGN also will air qualifying at 10:30 a.m.

• TNT Sports will air an alternate telecast of the Cup Series race on truTV that focuses on the in-season challenge. Larry McReynolds and Jeff Burton will co-host from the network’s Atlanta studio.

Here are four important things to keep in mind for your Thursday, July 3, 2025:

1. Electrek Formula Sun Grand Prix at NCM Motorsports Park!

• What: The Electrek Formula Sun Grand Prix returns to the National Corvette Museum Motorsports Park in Bowling Green! This is one of the best days for spectators to see solar-powered cars in action.
• When: Today, from 10:00 AM to 8:00 PM. The event runs through July 5th.
• Where: NCM Motorsports Park, 505 Kimberlee A. Fast Dr, Bowling Green, KY 42103.
• Details: Admission is free, offering a unique look into the future of automotive innovation and sustainable technology.

2. Red Cross Blood Drive in Bowling Green!

• What: Help save lives by donating blood at the Red Cross Blood Drive today.
• When: Today, from 10:30 AM to 4:30 PM.
• Where: Holiday Inn University Plaza & Sloan Convention Center, 1021 Wilkinson Trace, Bowling Green, KY 42103.
• Importance: Blood donations typically go down during the summer, so your contribution is especially important.
• Action: Register online at RedCrossBlood.org to secure your spot!

3. “Phantom of the Universe” at WKU Planetarium (Last Day!)

• What: Tonight is your last chance to catch “Phantom of the Universe” at the WKU Planetarium. The film, narrated by Tilda Swinton, explores the fascinating mystery of dark matter, immersing audiences in the search for this elusive part of our universe.
• When: Tonight at 7:00 PM.
• Where: WKU Planetarium, 1906 College Heights Blvd, Bowling Green, KY 42101 (located in Thompson Complex Center Wing).

4. Cave City Community Fireworks Celebration!

• What: Mark your calendars for the 2025 Cave City Community Fireworks Celebration! Enjoy food trucks, music, games, and, of course, a fantastic fireworks display.
• When: This evening, starting at 6:00 PM.
• Where: Mammoth Cave Street in Cave City (502 Mammoth Cave St, Cave City, KY 42127).
• Details: It’s the perfect way to get into the holiday spirit and spend a little time outdoors before the Fourth of July!

CHICAGO, July 03, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Rate, a leading fintech company, is hitting the track this weekend with Hyak Motorsports, sponsoring driver Ricky Stenhouse Jr at the Grant Park 165. As part of the growing Rate Racing initiative, the event marks another high-speed moment where Rate’s passion for excellence meets hometown pride.

“I’m excited to light up the streets of Chicago and represent Rate in front of their hometown crowd,” said Ricky Stenhouse Jr.

The Grant Park 165 is a key milestone in Rate’s broader push to connect with customers through partnerships that mirror its core values: speed, precision, and high performance. The Hyak Motorsports collaboration builds on that foundation, blending the excitement of racing with the company’s relentless drive to innovate and compete at the highest level.

“At Rate, we partner with people who play to win. They move fast, take smart risks, and stay locked in on performance,” said Victor Ciardelli, CEO of Rate. “That’s exactly what Ricky Stenhouse Jr and Hyak Motorsports bring to the track. This partnership is built on a shared mindset, whether it’s winning a race or helping someone win a home.”

All Eyes on Chicago This Weekend
This weekend’s Chicago Street Race, running July 5–6, brings together top-tier talent, high-performance engineering, and brand-backed momentum. As part of Hyak Motorsports’ race advance, fans can expect a dynamic showing from the team, fueled in part by Rate’s sponsorship and the driving force of Ricky Stenhouse Jr.

With deep experience and leadership from Hyak Motorsports VP of Sales & Marketing Todd Carte, the team is primed for a standout appearance on one of the most iconic road courses in the country. The partnership with Rate not only brings added visibility but also reinforces Hyak’s ongoing mission to build strategic alliances that elevate motorsport culture and fan engagement.

More information on Hyak Motorsports can be found at www.hyakmotorsports.com.

Event Overview
Event: Grant Park 165
Time/Date: 2 PM ET on Sunday, July 6
Location: Chicago Street Course
Layout: 2.2-mile, 12-turn street course
Format: 165 miles / 75 laps | Stages: 20 / 45 / 75
TV/Radio: TNT / MRN / SiriusXM NASCAR Radio

About Rate

Rate Companies is a leader in mortgage lending and digital financial services. Headquartered in Chicago, Rate has over 850 branches across all 50 states and Washington, D.C. Since its launch in 2000, Rate has helped more than 2 million homeowners with home purchase loans, refinances, and home equity loans. The company has cemented itself as an industry leader by introducing innovative technology, offering low rates, and delivering unparalleled customer service. Recent honors and awards include: a Best Mortgage Lender of 2025 by Fortune; Best Mortgage Lender of 2025 for First-Time Homebuyers by Forbes; a Best Mortgage Lender of 2025 for FHA Loans, Home Equity Loans, and Lower Credit Scores by NerdWallet; Best Mortgage Lender of 2025 for Digital Experience and Down Payment Assistance by Motley Fool; Chicago Agent Magazine’s Lender of the Year for seven consecutive years. Visit rate.com for more information.

About Hyak

Hyak Motorsports is a race-winning NASCAR team co-owned by Gordon Smith, Ernie Cope, Mark Hughes, and Brad Daugherty as of Nov. 18, 2023. The Harrisburg, North Carolina-based organization won the 2023 Daytona 500 with driver Ricky Stenhouse Jr and has accumulated two other wins in the NASCAR Cup Series. For more information, please visit the newly rebranded team at HyakMotorsports.com and on social at Facebook, Instagram, X and LinkedIn.

Media Contact

press@rate.com