Buescher the highest remaining seed as second round match-ups for in-season tournament are set

 

Chris Buescher is the highest remaining seed in the NASCAR in-season tournament as it shifts to the streets of Chicago.

Buescher, the No. 3 seed, survived his match-up with Todd Gilliland to advance through the opening round at EchoPark Speedway. Buescher will now take on another fellow Ford driver, Zane Smith, in the third annual Chicago street race Sunday afternoon.

The top two seeds, Denny Hamlin and Chase Briscoe, were both collected in the 22-car crash last weekend that ended both their respective races and tournament chances. Hamlin entered the tournament as the No. 1 seed and Briscoe was the No. 2 seed.

Of no surprise, NASCAR revealed there are no perfect brackets remaining for those who filled out one on their website. The contest would have awarded $1 million to anyone who had a perfect bracket through the tournament.

The winning driver of the tournament also gets $1 million.

Chicago is the second of the five-race tournament.

The second-round matchups are:

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

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

(No. 14) Zane Smith vs (No. 3) Chris Buescher

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

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

(No. 26) Carson Hocevar vs (No. 23) Tyler Reddick

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

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