Chase Briscoe and Team Taking the NASCAR In-Season Tournament Seriously Ahead of Battle With Noah Gragson

When the green flag falls to start Saturday night’s NASCAR Cup race at Echo Park Speedway (formerly Atlanta Motor Speedway), 32 drivers will also be chasing another kind of green — $1 million dollars — as the inaugural five-race In-Season Challenge kicks off.

While some drivers who have already qualified for this season’s 16-driver, 10-race NASCAR Cup playoffs have downplayed the tournament’s significance, even drivers who already have secured a spot in the playoffs like Chase Briscoe aren’t taking anything to chance.

Briscoe, who won last Sunday at Pocono to punch his ticket into the playoffs, will square off in Saturday’s first round of the Challenge with one of the more potentially dangerous drivers: Noah Gragson.

By dangerous, we don’t mean Gragson is a bad driver. Rather, Gragson is seeded 31^st of the 32 drivers in the challenge and needs a win in any of the remaining nine regular season races to earn a playoff berth for the first time in his Cup career.

And that’s why Briscoe — who is seeded second in the challenge — is so concerned about Gragson and the threat he presents. If Briscoe finishes lower than Gragson in the actual race standings Saturday, there goes Briscoe’s chance of earning a cool million bucks in the single-elimination challenge.

For example, if Gragson finishes 10^th and Briscoe 15^th, Briscoe is gone and Gragson advances to the Challenge’s second round next Sunday in the Chicago Street Race.

Even if Gragson finishes next-to-last in Saturday’s race, he still will advance in the Challenge if Briscoe finishes last.

That’s why Briscoe will have to keep his head on a swivel. He has to do everything he can to stay at least one spot ahead of Gragson when the checkered flag falls.

“It definitely is going to be a unique complexion to the race,” Briscoe said. “I’ve never really been where it is head-to-head with one other guy.”

“In the Playoffs, you are racing only really against 15 or 11 or 7 or 3 other guys, but never head-to-head. It will kind of be unique — if you are running 14th and they are running 16th — like that battle is going to be really intense in the mix of the battle of the race itself.

“Maybe it could cause chaos at the end. I don’t know how desperate people will be in the first round, but if you get knocked out the first round, you can’t move on. I’ve looked — not only at the matchup with Noah (Gragson) — but kind of who I will go up against every round.”

“The team, I don’t think, truthfully, really cares. They are more worried about winning the race, and obviously, if you win the race, you are going to move on anyways,” he mentioned.

Playoffs: Briscoe is already in, Gragson is still on the outside looking in

One thing Briscoe doesn’t need to worry about is qualifying for the Cup playoffs, having done so by winning this past Sunday’s race at Pocono.

But Gragson does not have a win, so he has greater incentive to perform better in all of the nine remaining regular season races. As it stands, Gragson has to win to make the playoffs. He’s too far behind to qualify for the 16-driver playoff field by points alone.

“I don’t think the teams are going to change their strategy based on who you are racing, because based on the Playoff standpoint, it doesn’t really do anything,” Briscoe said.

“I do think when you get to the final round, or even the final four, I think there is maybe a chance that maybe teams will call a different strategy based on the Playoff situation.”

There’s also a bit of a former rivalry that has reignited: both Briscoe and Gragson were former teammates last season on the now-defunct Stewart Haas Racing.

“Noah and I trash talked each other for a little bit this week, so it will be fun to kind of have that competition, and certainly, out of all of the tracks, I would say, in this matchup deal, I’m by far the most nervous about this one — especially going up against Noah,” Briscoe stated. “(Atlanta) is a place where you can come and run really, really well, so it will be a tough challenge for sure.”

But there’s also another challenge for Briscoe that Gragson has already won:

“My son’s favorite driver is Noah,” Briscoe quipped.

Can you just imagine the trash talk THAT generates?