Staged activities in NASCAR are not so common. Well, drivers have tried to manipulate their race finishes with slow-moving teammates. But staged crashes? Sounds odd, right? The recently unfolded Quaker State 400 race featured spicy storylines like the bad weather, red flags, track-clearing pileups, and a last-lap pass by the hometown hero. However, what stood out was the lap 58 wreck, and fans smelled something fishy there.

NASCAR launched its In-Season Tournament in Atlanta, to be continued in Chicago, Sonoma, Dover, and Indianapolis. Before the Atlanta race, both drivers and fans kissed themselves the best of luck for a chance to get a million dollars. But now, fans have lost their chance – and they blame NASCAR for it.

Why suspicion enshrouds NASCAR

Well, the In-Season Tournament had something special for fans. That was the Bracket Game, where fans got a chance to fill out the perfect bracket by 6:55 PM ET on June 28th. The cherry on top of this cake was the $1,000,000 awaiting the lucky fan with the perfect bracket. However, the ravages of the Atlanta race wiped out any such possibility. On lap 58 of the NASCAR Cup Series race, Christopher Bell got loose and spun out. What ensued was a 23-car pile-up involving 7 of the 11 winners in 2025. Big names like Denny Hamlin, William Byron, Joey Logano, and William Byron had their cars destroyed. Of the 23 involved, nine were unable to continue.

Hence, this resulted in a consequence that dampened many fans’ green dreams. In a recent post on X, NASCAR wrote, “Brackets were busted at @EchoParkSpdwy.” An even more detailed statement about the fans’ loss is visible on NASCAR’s In-Season Challenge page: “There was a $1M prize for anyone with a perfect bracket—but zero perfect brackets remain after Challenge Round 1.” Blowing out all chances in the very first round is bound to whip up suspicion. That is especially because the first race was on a superspeedway, a haven of crashes and mishaps. That is why shocking fallouts like Ricky Stenhouse Jr. knocking out Christopher Bell, Erik Jones beating Ross Chastain, and Ryan Preece outpacing William Byron happened.

Journalist Jordan Bianchi was certain that it was NASCAR’s plan all along. The decision to put a wildcard race in the first round was not a lackluster one. Bianchi said after the Atlanta race, “I just want to say, this is exactly how, what NASCAR intended. 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.”

And Bianchi has a ton of support among fans. Waves of suspicion rocked the NASCAR community.

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Fans call out the flaws

Well, a million-dollar fantasy is enticing to anyone. However, looking closely into the In-Season Tournament Bracket Challenge, any diehard NASCAR fan would have known that the chances were very slim. Although the history of fatalities and accidents is lower at Atlanta than at other drafting tracks, wrecks were likely anyway. Hence, one fan demanded a conscious change in the executive decision for next season: “Not including a drafting track in version 2.0 of this tournament next year might be a good place to start😅.” What is more, half of the Cup Series field was wiped out in the 23-car melee. Inevitably, major names of the In-Season Tournament were there, so a fan wrote, “Sucks we lost half the field.“

Most fans pointed fingers at NASCAR for planning out the whole ordeal. Putting a wildcard drafting track in the first round seemed intentional, as eliminating all perfect brackets was easy. Thus, the sport got to retain a million dollars, as a fan wrote: “Just what you wanted, now you don’t gotta pay 1 million to any fans…😂.” With the ongoing NASCAR lawsuit, off-sport expenses are no less for the sport. Hence, another fan slipped into the executives’ shoes to offer a mocking take: “nascar thanking the racing gods that they ain’t giving the people a million dollars🙏😭.” What concerned another fan was the lack of interest in the tournament going forward. With popular drivers wiped out, it may lose its appeal: “Well, that was a waste of everybody’s time. Good luck talking about it for the next four weeks with nobody giving a s—.“

Clearly, the emotions of fans are all over the place after the first round. Let us see what happens in round 2 of the tournament, where 16 drivers will face each other.