Saturday night's Quaker State 400 at EchoPark Speedway (formerly Atlanta Motor Speedway) marks the beginning of NASCAR's new In-Season Challenge for TNT Sports' five-race summer stretch.
The top 32 drivers in points following the Cracker Barrel 400 at Nashville Superspeedway on June 1 qualified for the inaugural tournament, with the field seeded into a head-to-head, bracket-style competition based on their finishing positions each of the last three weeks.
While some of the top drivers in the bracket are going to be hard to take down, the drafting-style pack racing that EchoPark Speedway provides is going to make it difficult to predict how things are going to play out, leaving the door open for some surprise candidates to advance to the second round of the challenge.
With that said, here are three drivers that could surprise on Saturday night and advance out of the opening round of the In-Season Challenge.
Ricky Stenhouse Jr., No. 47 (Hyak Motorsports Chevrolet)
After a consistent start to the 2025 season that had Stenhouse in playoff contention, four straight finishes of 20th or worse and a pair of run-ins with Carson Hocevar have sent him crashing down the playoff standings to 25th. Luckily for Stenhouse, all four of his Cup Series wins have come on drafting-style tracks, not to mention three top-10 finishes in his last four starts at EchoPark Speedway.
Stenhouse enters the first round as the No. 29 seed and is pitted up against the four-seed Christopher Bell, who won the first race at the track just outside Atlanta in February. That is his only points-paying win in a drafting-style race and he enters Saturday night with a pair of finishes outside the top-15 in the last three weeks. This is certainly a matchup worth keeping an eye on, especially if Stenhouse finds himself near the front in the closing laps.
Carson Hocevar, No. 77 (Spire Motorsports Chevrolet)
How ironic that Hocevar ends up on the same list as Stenhouse after the drama between the two in recent weeks. Aside from that, Hocevar is in a similar situation heading into the weekend. He has had multiple chances to win a race this season, but three finishes of 29th or worse in the last five races have halted the momentum. While he is still searching for his first Cup Series win, Hocevar was runner-up at EchoPark Speedway in February and has never finished outside the top-20 there in three starts.
The 26-seed Hocevar will square off with the seven-seed Ryan Blaney, who was not pleased with Hocevar's aggressiveness in that February race after getting turned going into Turn 1. While a little inconsistent, Blaney has a win at Nashville and a third at Pocono in his last four starts.
He has surprisingly never won at the drafting-style EchoPark Speedway track, but is one of the best superspeedway racers in the field with four wins. This will not be an easy matchup for Hocevar, but he was battling for the win in the February race and should be a threat to Blaney this weekend if he can stay out of trouble.
Daniel Suarez, No. 99 (Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet)
Suarez enters the In-Season Challenge riding a six-race stretch of finishing outside the top-10 in points-paying races. His most recent top-10 was a 10th-place finish at Texas on May 4, so it is fair to question why he is considered a sleeper in the opening round. In the seven races on the drafting-style Atlanta track, Suarez has five top-10s, including a win in the 2024 spring race and a pair of runner-ups in his last four starts there.
The No. 24 seed Suarez will face the nine-seed Bubba Wallace in the first round. Wallace has a prior win at Talladega in 2021, but has not had the same results at Atlanta, with only two top-10s in 12 starts. A disappointing 36th-place finish after a brake rotor issue at Pocono leaves Wallace limping into the In-Season Challenge searching for a turnaround. That is a prime opportunity for Suarez to take advantage of and pull the upset.