NASCAR insiders react to 'chaos bomb' blowing up In-Season Tournament brackets at Atlanta

After one round of the NASCAR In-Season Tournament, there have been major upsets throughout the bracket. That’s likely what the series wanted when it made Atlanta the first race of the whole tournament.

If you wanted chaos, you got chaos. A 23-car wreck took out many of the top contenders in the race, in the point standings, and many of the top seeds in the tournament.

NASCAR drew up the In-Season Tournament to be a new way to garner attention in the summer. It also helps promote the new media deal with TNT. Even though they wanted it to be a little wild, it might have started off too wild.

Jeff Gluck and Jordan Bianchi of The Athletic talked about the chaos of Saturday night. Was this what NASCAR had in mind?

“So, here’s the thing, Jordan. As a result of how crazy this was, the Sweet 16 of this tournament has one race winner from this season who has survived, and that is Chase Elliott,” Gluck said on The Teardown. “Chase Elliott is the only person who has made the Sweet 16. So, none of the race winners, the entire season, have advanced after round one. If anyone has a perfect bracket after this for the NASCAR million-dollar thing, I don’t know how they were choosing.”

“I just want to say, this is exactly how, what NASCAR intended,” Bianchi replied. “Like, when they created this bracket and they put Atlanta as the first race, we all thought, ‘Okay.’ And this is exactly what happened. This is what they wanted. … Maybe not to [this] degree. But not so far, but you know, a good three-quarters of the way there.”

Of the top-10 in points currently, only three are in the second round of the NASCAR In-Season Tournament. Those drivers are Chase Elliott, Tyler Reddick, and Chris Buescher. Maybe not the best scenario for the rest of the tournament.

“I don’t think they wanted to knock out almost every big name you know, on the first night,” Gluck continued. “They wanted to have like a little chaos bomb for Team Chaos like yourself, where you take out, you know, maybe three or four of the big seeds, and you have some huge upsets, right? That’s what they wanted to do. I don’t think they wanted to take out every big-name driver.

Matchups for the Chicago Street Course this weekend are truly up in the air. Ty Dillon vs. Brad Keselowski? Erik Joens vs. Ricky Stenhouse Jr.? Then again, there are a few good ones in the second round of the bracket. AJ Allmendinger and Ty Gibbs against each other in a street race sounds like a great battle.