The 2025 NASCAR In-Season Challenge presented by DraftKings Sportbook was a multi-stage motorsport tournament that was played during the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season. It was the first edition of the NASCAR In-Season Challenge.
32 full-time drivers in the series participated in the tournament, with races also counting toward the regular season and playoff standings as normal. Following the Cracker Barrel 400 at Nashville Superspeedway, 4 full-time drivers failed to make the challenge: Shane van Gisbergen, Cole Custer, Riley Herbst, and Cody Ware. Following the Brickyard 400 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Ty Gibbs of Joe Gibbs Racing defeated Ty Dillon of Kaulig Racing to win the 1 million.
Format
The tournament consisted of eight regular season races that would run during June and July. Before the bracket was set, there was a qualifying phase where all eligible drivers compete. The bottom four full-time drivers in the standings after the phase failed to qualify for the bracket. Then, the remaining 32 drivers were seeded into the bracket based on their performance in the three qualifying races. The last five races were conducted in a single elimination bracket, with the first four rounds known as "Challenge Rounds". In each round, the driver in each matchup with the better finish advanced, while the other was eliminated. This process continued until only two drivers remain in the "Champions Round"; the driver with the better finish in that race would become the tournament champion.
Schedule No Race name Track Location Date Time (ET) TV Radio Report Seeding Races 1 FireKeepers Casino 400 Michigan International SpeedwayBrooklyn, Michigan June 8 2 PM Prime Video MRN Report 2 Viva México 250 Autódromo Hermanos RodríguezMexico City, Mexico June 15 3 PM Report 3 The Great American Getaway 400 presented by VISITPA Pocono Raceway Long Pond, Pennsylvania June 22 2 PM Report Challenge Round 1 (Round of 32) 4 Quaker State 400 available at Walmart EchoPark Speedway Hampton, Georgia June 28 7 PM TNT PRN Report Challenge Round 2 (Round of 16) 5 Grant Park 165 Chicago Street Course Chicago, Illinois July 6 2 PM TNT MRN Report Challenge Round 3 (Quarter-Final) 6 Toyota/Save Mart 350 Sonoma Raceway Sonoma, California July 13 3:30 PM TNT PRN Report Challenge Round 4 (Semi-Final) 7 Autotrader EchoPark Automotive 400 Dover Motor Speedway Dover, Delaware July 20 2 PM TNT PRN Report Champions Round (Final) 8 Brickyard 400 presented by PPG Indianapolis Motor Speedway Speedway, Indiana July 27 2 PM TNT IMS/PRN Report
Notes Oval track Road course Street course
Bracket
Broadcasting The seeding races were streamed on the new package to be shown on Amazon Prime Video. All tournament races were shown on TNT and streamed on HBO Max. TNT's sister channel truTV also aired a weekly Altcast, hosted by Larry McReynolds and Jeff Burton, alongside the main feed.
References