NASCAR In-Season Challenge: Five first-round matchups to watch at Sonoma

NASCAR's In-Season Challenge kicks off its second edition this weekend at Sonoma, with the stage set for some fascinating opening round matchups.

The key phrase, of course, came about halfway through that last sentence. 'At Sonoma'. Starting things off at a road course could very easily render some seedings completely irrelevant, and introduce some early chaos into the five-week tournament.

Some highly-seeded drivers – Ty Gibbs, for example – are proficient on road courses and should cruise through their matchups (in Gibbs' case against Austin Dillon, who has a poor record on road and street courses).

Others might find themselves a little upset by their opponent in the first race on the road to $1m. Yet more might have some other concerns coming into their first round matchups.

Here are five matchups to keep an eye on during Sunday's race, even if it means glances at the timing tower instead of the racetrack.

No. 12 Chase Briscoe vs No. 21 A.J. Allmendinger

No mismatch potential here. This is – as Jim Ross would say – a good old fashioned slobberknocker. Allmendinger's road course expertise has been well known for a decade now, while Briscoe has run impressively at road courses since moving to Joe Gibbs Racing at the start of 2025.

Of the eight road/street races he's finished in that time, he's finished top-ten in half of them, and top-five in three – including second at Sonoma last year. This one should be fought right up at the sharp end.

No. 13 Bubba Wallace vs No. 20 Michael McDowell

The good news for Bubba Wallace is that he's fresh off his best ever finish in a race where he had to turn right as well as left, finishing second behind his team-mate Corey Heim at San Diego.

The bad news is that in 40 other road course starts, he's got one top-five finish (fifth at the Indianapolis road course in 2022) and hasn't finished better than 14th in seven races at Sonoma.

The worse news is that he's matched up with Michael McDowell, a road course expert who hasn't finished worse than seventh at Sonoma in his last four starts.

Oh, and Wallace is missing two members of his pit crew.

No. 2 Denny Hamlin vs No. 31 Ty Dillon

Please, please do not mistake this as a suggestion that Ty Dillon's 2025 In-Season Challenge run means that he should be considered a dark horse to repeat that success. That level of sheer, dumb luck is not a sustainable plan.

If there's any time to challenge Denny Hamlin this year though, it's at a course that turns right. Left turns only? Don't even bother leaving the hauler. Right turns? Well, 'possible' doesn't mean 'likely', but...it's possible.

No. 10 Christopher Bell vs No. 23 Ross Chastain

CBell is one of the best drivers in the field, in some of the best machinery in the field. Ross Chastain is an above average driver whose team has broadly struggled for pace this year.

Game over, right? Well, Bell's still clearly struggling with the broken wrist he sustained at Michigan three weeks ago – to the point that he climbed out of the car to hand over to Brent Crews after just a handful of laps last Sunday at San Diego.

Sonoma is another physically demanding course for someone to drive with one and a half working hands, which blows this matchup wide open.

No. 14 Shane van Gisbergen vs No. 19 Ryan Preece

What? How's this one going to be competitive? SVG is the greatest road course racer in NASCAR history!

As we were reminded last Sunday though, not even the Kiwi is immune to the randomness of restarts and other drivers' mistakes. Austin Hill saw that his day was ended in San Diego, and anyone in the field could do the same just a week later at Sonoma.

Van Gisbergen is -4000 with some oddsmakers, with Preece at +950. Is it really that unlikely that he gets caught up in a mess of someone else's making, or has a mechanical failure? Just watch it, for the upset potential.

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