HAMPTON, Ga. — Before last Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series event at Pocono Raceway, Chase Briscoe was part of a group of drivers keeping a close eye on potential seeding for the In-Season Challenge, which starts Saturday night with the Quaker State 400 Available at Walmart at EchoPark Speedway, formerly Atlanta Motor Speedway (7 p.m. ET, TNT Sports/truTV, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
The standings before the Pocono race would have paired Briscoe against fellow Toyota driver Tyler Reddick, a matchup the No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota driver said he would prefer to avoid.
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“Right now, I’d go against Tyler if it started this weekend,” Briscoe said at the time. “I’m hoping that changes, because Tyler … I think he’s seeded like 22nd right now, and he’s one of the top five guys in the sport.
“So, it would be a tough Round 1, but honestly, the seeding is tough because at Atlanta, anybody could be hard to beat. I feel like at Atlanta, you don’t want to go against somebody in your manufacturer (group), because you’re all normally on the same strategy.”
Briscoe, of course, claimed his first victory of the season later that afternoon and dramatically altered his position in the In-Season Challenge bracket. With the win, he earned the second seed behind Michigan winner Denny Hamlin and will face Front Row Motorsports’ Noah Gragson in the first round of the inaugural challenge.
Interestingly, Gragson is the favorite driver of Brooks, Briscoe’s 3-year-old son.
Brooks Bracket 😂 pic.twitter.com/hDzKqyx3wY
– Chase Briscoe (@chasebriscoe) June 27, 2025
He’s also one of Briscoe’s closest friends and may prove as formidable an opponent as Reddick would have been.
“Honestly, I feel like here at a superspeedway, we’ve seen how good the Fords are, and going against a Ford here is certainly a hard challenge,” Briscoe said. “This is one of those race tracks that, no matter what team you are with, you kind of have a shot to go and win.