The inaugural In-Season Challenge is over. The third of four crown-jewel races is complete. A highly anticipated summer stretch has concluded after showcasing NASCAR’s first exclusively streamed broadcasts and the Cup Series’ first international points since 1958.
Yet four races remain before the playoffs get cranked up with 16 drivers competing for the 2025 championship.
RELATED: Teammate bubble battle heats up before Iowa
It might be tempting to suggest August is when NASCAR’s premier series enters a natural lull. A quiet period seems inevitable during a 36-race season stretched across 10 months and thousands of miles.
But consider what transpired over the final four races of the regular season last year.
After the Brickyard 400, Chris Buescher, Ross Chastain and Bubba Wallace were fiercely jostling for playoff spots. Each spent a significant amount of time above the elimination line in August. But when the dust settled after Darlington Raceway, none of the three was in the playoff field as the final two races of the regular season yielded new 2024 winners in Harrison Burton and Chase Briscoe.
The disruption would have been larger if Austin Dillon’s controversial victory at Richmond Raceway (where he wrecked Denny Hamlin and Joey Logano in the last two turns) had stood as playoff eligible and eliminated another winless driver from title contention.
Dillon’s desperation is a good reminder of the lengths that drivers will go to if a win offers the chance to save a disappointing season. In NASCAR, the dog days of summer tend to turn dog eat dog with playoff berths at stake.
In every year since the Next Gen’s 2022 inception, at least one driver has clinched a playoff spot by winning from below the elimination line in the last four races of the regular season.
And 2025 could present the greatest opportunity yet for upsetting the establishment.
Iowa Speedway and Watkins Glen International — a short track and a road course — are in the four-race push to the playoffs this year in place of Michigan and Darlington — two tracks known for more straightforward results.
As NASCAR on NBC picks up the rest of the schedule starting Sunday at Iowa Speedway, the fresh broadcaster provides a fitting delineation for the Cup season’s final 14 weeks.
Before the 10-race run to determine the champion, here are three things to watch in four pressure-packed races to set the field:
— A deceptively large bubble: Buescher currently is in the final playoff spot by 42 points over Roush Fenway Keselowski teammate Ryan Preece, the biggest gap for a driver on the elimination line this season. But it’s of little comfort to Buescher given the remaining track lineup, which easily could produce a first-time winner from below the line.
Iowa and Richmond are short tracks where underdogs can thrive. Watkins Glen’s winding circuit surely has road-course aces AJ Allmendinger and Michael McDowell salivating (if they can outrun Shane van Gisbergen). And the regular-season finale at Daytona International Speedway is guaranteed to be a wide-open affair.
There has yet to be a regular season with more than 16 winners, so the points bubble likely will come into play in creating the championship field. But it seems foolish to focus on the elimination line until the final 40 laps at Daytona — where the capricious draft could turn that into a futile exercise anyway.
— Timely breakthroughs: Ty Gibbs and Carson Hocevar have little hope of cracking the playoff field on points, but there also is little doubt that the pair of 22-year-olds eventually will be Cup winners.
Hocevar has been agonizingly close multiple times this year, and Gibbs is even more overdue while also carrying the million-dollar momentum of winning the In-Season Challenge.
It would come as no surprise if either — or both — are locked in a playoff berth with an inaugural win in Cup this month.
— Hendrick high heat: The regular-season championship is worth 15 playoff points and seems destined to be won by Hendrick Motorsports, which has led the standings for 20 consecutive races.
Chase Elliott currently leads by thin margins over teammates William Byron (by four points) and Kyle Larson (by 15 points). Denny Hamlin (despite missing Mexico City) lurks only 20 points behind, marking the tightest separation of the top four through 22 races since 2012.
Much of the focus in August rightfully will be on the elimination line. But the top four’s results over the next four races will determine how 42 playoff points are divvied up, and that could have a pivotal impact on who makes the championship round in Phoenix.