New pairings revealed for NASCAR’s $1,000,000 challenge after Denny Hamlin, Brad Keselowski, Joey Logano, and more miss the cut

Denny Hamlin, driver of the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota, entered NASCAR’s In-Season Tournament as the top seed, thanks to his win at Michigan and his runner-up finish at Pocono. However, things didn’t end well for the Tampa, Florida native when he arrived at Echopark Speedway, formerly known as Atlanta Motor Speedway.

Saturday’s event, the Quaker State 400, was the first of the five-race segment. Hamlin entered the race with hopes to bag his 58th career win, but got caught in a massive multi-car pile-up, which involved as many as 18 drivers in the mess.

As a result, he was slammed with his third DNF of the season and got demoted from third to fourth in the driver standings. That being said, The Athletic’s Jeff Gluck recently posted the in-season tournament Round-2 pairing for the upcoming Chicago street race. Notably, Brad Keselowski and Joey Logano, both former Cup Series champions, missed the cut.

Gluck wrote,

“No. 3 Chris Buescher vs. No. 14 Zane Smith

No. 5 Chase Elliott vs. No. 12 John Hunter Nemechek

No. 6 Ty Gibbs vs. No. 22 AJ Allmendinger

No. 8 Alex Bowman vs. No. 9 Bubba Wallace

No. 15 Ryan Preece vs. No. 31 Noah Gragson

No. 17 Brad Keselowski vs. No. 32 Ty Dillon

No. 20 Erik Jones vs. No. 29 Ricky Stenhouse Jr.

No. 23 Tyler Reddick vs. No. 26 Carson Hocevar”

Denny Hamlin can still contend for wins, but sadly, there’s no way he can claim that million-dollar cash prize. His teammate, Christopher Bell, too, got involved in a mid-race crash and fell out of contention.

As things stand, Ty Gibbs is the only driver from the JGR camp who can compete in the in-season tournament. He is also the only JGR driver who has yet to qualify for the playoffs.

Fans can watch the action unravel next Sunday, July 6. The 75-lap race will be televised on TNT Sports, 2 pm ET onwards, with live radio updates on MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. Hendrick Motorsports driver Alex Bowman is the defending winner of the race.

Denny Hamlin breaks down his recent Atlanta fiasco

During a post-race interview, Denny Hamlin revealed what happened moments before the big wreck at Atlanta, which took out several drivers, including himself. The incident happened at Stage 2 was about to kick off.

“All of us were in the top line pushing off Turn 2. Some zigged, some zagged, most crashed,” Denny Hamlin told TNT Sports (quoted by On3). “I don’t know. I was on the bumper of the 42 (John Hunter Nemechek); he was on the bumper of somebody else in front of him.”

“We all just got to speedway pushing zigging and zagging, and we all crashed. Just part of it, and now we go watch the rest of the race,” he added.

Besides ousting him from the in-season tournament, the DNF didn’t really affect Denny Hamlin, as he is in a good spot in terms of standings. He has three wins already to his name, besides eight top fives and nine top-10 finishes.