2026 NASCAR In-Season Challenge

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

DateJune 28 – July 26, 2026
Venue(s)
Teams32 (full-time)
PurseUS$1 Million
2026 NASCAR In-Season Challenge
Tournament information
DateJune 28 – July 26, 2026
Venue(s)
Teams32 (full-time)
PurseUS$1 Million
 2025 NASCAR In-Season Challenge
2027 NASCAR In-Season Challenge 

The 2026 NASCAR In-Season Challenge will be a multi-stage motorsport tournament that will be played during the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series season. It will be the second edition of the NASCAR In-Season Challenge. 32 full-time drivers in the series will participate in the tournament and races will also count toward the regular season and playoff standings as normal.

Ty Gibbs of Joe Gibbs Racing is the defending winner of the tournament.

The tournament will consist of five regular season races that would run during June and July. The bottom four full-time drivers in the standings after the phase failed to qualify for the bracket. 32 drivers will then be seeded into the bracket based on their performance based on the regular season standings. The five races will conduct 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 will continue until only two drivers remain in the "Champions Round"; the driver with the better finish in that race would become the tournament champion.

Changes

2026 will mark the first year of major rule changes that marked drivers being ranked off of regular season points rather than three seeding races used in 2025.[1]

Schedule

 O  Oval track
 R  Road course

No Race name Track Location Date Time (ET)[2] Radio Report
1 Toyota/Save Mart 350  R  Sonoma Raceway Sonoma, California June 28 3:30 pm MRN Report
2 TBA  O  Chicagoland Speedway Joliet, Illinois July 5 6 pm Report
3 Quaker State 400  O  EchoPark Speedway Hampton, Georgia July 12 7 pm PRN Report
4 Window World 450  O  North Wilkesboro Speedway North Wilkesboro, North Carolina July 19 Report
5 Brickyard 400  O  Indianapolis Motor Speedway Speedway, Indiana July 26 2 pm IMS Report

Bracket

Broadcasting

References

Related Articles

Wikiwand AI