{"id":45559,"date":"2025-07-07T08:53:14","date_gmt":"2025-07-07T08:53:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/45559\/"},"modified":"2025-07-07T08:53:14","modified_gmt":"2025-07-07T08:53:14","slug":"in-season-challenge-update-after-round-2-at-chicago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/45559\/","title":{"rendered":"In-Season Challenge: Update after Round 2 at Chicago"},"content":{"rendered":"

No. 32 seed Ty Dillon\u2019s Cinderella run in the In-Season Challenge<\/strong><\/a> continued in the Chicago Street Race as his competitor, No. 17 seed Brad Keselowski, bowed out early in the Lap 3 wreck<\/a> that mangled multiple cars. That was good enough for Dillon, who finished 20th at Chicago and upset Denny Hamlin last week, to advance to the third round at Sonoma. How far Dillon can take it is anyone\u2019s guess at this point (he\u2019ll face Alex Bowman next week), but his story added some flair to what was another dramatic weekend in NASCAR\u2019s inaugural tournament on TNT Sports.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s where we stand after Chicago and before next Sunday\u2019s Toyota\/Save Mart 350 at Sonoma Raceway:<\/p>\n

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RELATED: Race results<\/a> | Check your bracket<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Chicago Street Race winner:<\/strong> Shane van Gisbergen made it two wins in three races<\/a> at Chicago as the driver of the No. 88 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet continued to exert his dominance at the road courses. However, his victory had no bearing on the In-Season Challenge because SVG wasn\u2019t among the top 32 drivers after Nashville, who qualified for the tournament.<\/p>\n

Who advances to Round 3: <\/strong>(6) Ty Gibbs, (8) Alex Bowman, (12) John Hunter Nemechek, (14) Zane Smith, (15) Ryan Preece, (20) Erik Jones, (23) Tyler Reddick and (32) Ty Dillon.<\/p>\n

Bowman pushed Bubba Wallace out of the way with six laps to go at Chicago and went on to win their matchup in what was one of the most dramatic moments of Sunday\u2019s race. It was the second straight season where Bowman and Wallace had a dust-up at Chicago with Bowman benefitting both times (including last year\u2019s win). The drivers gave each other a good-natured ribbing in the lead-up to Sunday\u2019s race, but the tone post-race didn\u2019t sound as chummy. There could be plenty of chances for Wallace to spoil Bowman\u2019s fun next week on the winding road course at Sonoma.<\/p>\n

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For the second straight year at Chicago, Ty Gibbs ran up front and had one of his better races of the season, finishing second to SVG and beating out noted road-course ace AJ Allmendinger (who finished sixth). Gibbs, who was second, held off Allmendinger, in third, on the final restart and pulled away from him to win their matchup comfortably. Up next is No. 14 seed Zane Smith, a California native. Gibbs will be the favorite, but only slightly if you consider his previous finishes at Sonoma of 18th and 37th.<\/p>\n

Most interesting matchup in Round 3 of the challenge: No. 12 seed John Hunter Nemechek vs. No. 20 seed Erik Jones. <\/strong>Legacy Motor Club teammates will battle it out in Wine Country with a trip to the final four on the line. Nemechek finished 15th and just ahead of Chase Elliott in 16th to advance, while Jones\u2019 26th-place result was good enough to beat Ricky Stenhouse Jr., who spun in the final stage and finished 31st. Jones has an average finish of 17.7 in 10 races at Sonoma. Nemechek has never raced at Sonoma in the Cup Series, but in the Xfinity Series, he had a best finish of eighth place in two races. In head-to-head matchups against each other, Jones has prevailed 30 times to Nemechek\u2019s 25 times, according to Racing Insights.<\/p>\n

Who\u2019s up<\/strong><\/p>\n

Tyler Reddick, No. 45 23XI Racing Toyota.<\/strong> Reddick finished third at Chicago to easily take down Carson Hocevar, who ignited the Lap 3 multicar wreck that ended the No. 77\u2019s day. It was the continuation of a hot start to the In-Season Challenge for Reddick, who finished fourth last week at EchoPark Speedway (formerly Atlanta Motor Speedway). Reddick appears to have recovered from his lull at Mexico City and Pocono that led to him getting the No. 23 seed. Reddick will face No. 15 seed Ryan Preece at Sonoma, a driver he holds a 58-35 advantage over head-to-head.<\/p>\n

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Who\u2019s down<\/strong><\/p>\n

Chris Buescher, No. 17 RFK Racing Ford.<\/strong> With several top seeds knocked out at EchoPark, the In-Season Challenge seemed to be there for the taking for the No. 3 seed Buescher, especially with two road courses on tap. However, Buescher found himself on pit road with the hood up in Stage 1 at Chicago thanks to a problem with the electronic control unit, and although his team worked hard to get him back in the race, he couldn\u2019t recover enough to get past No. 14 seed Zane Smith, who finished 14th to Buescher\u2019s 18th. In addition, Buescher remains winless this season and in a dogfight just to make the playoffs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"No. 32 seed Ty Dillon\u2019s Cinderella run in the In-Season Challenge continued in the Chicago Street Race as…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":45560,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[35119,22019,960,35367,5386,1818,35365,35368,32990,24389,35366],"class_list":{"0":"post-45559","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago","8":"tag-alex-bowman","9":"tag-bubba-wallace","10":"tag-chicago","11":"tag-erik-jones","12":"tag-il","13":"tag-illinois","14":"tag-john-hunter-nemechek","15":"tag-sonoma-raceway","16":"tag-ty-gibbs","17":"tag-tyler-reddick","18":"tag-zane-smith"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114811109518177357","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45559\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}