Denny Hamlin Enters Atlanta as NASCAR In-Season Tournament No. 1 Seed

Peter Casey-Imagn Images

Skipping the Viva Mexico 250 at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, following the birth of his third child, wasn't enough to keep Denny Hamlin from securing the No. 1 seed in NASCAR's first-ever in-season tournament, which kicks off this weekend in the Quaker State 400 at EchoPark Speedway.

Hamlin took home the top seed in the tournament by way of his win at Michigan International Speedway, combined with his runner-up finish this past weekend at Pocono Raceway. The in-season tournament seeding was based on the best finish for the 32 eligible drivers over the three events leading into EchoPark Speedway.

Chase Briscoe won last weekend's race at Pocono Raceway, which meant there was a tie for best finishing position between him and Hamlin over the three-race seeding period. However, Hamlin won the tiebreaker as his second-place finish at Pocono was better than Briscoe's second-best finish (7th) over the three-race span.

So, how does the NASCAR In-Season Tournament work?

32 drivers will face off in a head-to-head in groups of two through a five-week tournament, where the highest finishing driver in each grouping of two will advance to the next round of the tournament. The highest seed remaining in the tournament will square off against the lowest seed remaining in the tournament each week.

The 32-driver field will be whittled down to 16 drivers following Sunday's race at EchoPark Speedway. The 16 drivers remaining will be re-racked and battle it out at the Chicago Street Course, where eight drivers will advance to the next round, which will take place at Sonoma Raceway. Following Sonoma, four drivers will advance to battle it out at Dover Motor Speedway, and the final two drivers standing will duke it out in the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the in-season tournament $1 million prize.

Hamlin the No. 1 seed will face off against Ty Dillon, the No. 32 seed in the opening round of the tournament, and while on most race weekends you would expect Hamlin, who has three wins and is third in the championship standings to easily breeze past Dillon, the 33rd-ranked driver in the championship standings.

But this weekend isn't like most race weekends, as EchoPark Speedway (formerly Atlanta Motor Speedway) is a 1.54-mile superspeedway-style drafting track. What this means is that thanks to the draft, the competition throughout the field will be even closer than it already usually is in the NASCAR Cup Series, and at any moment, a big crash within the pack can end the day for drivers in an instant.

That being said, there will be no seeds coming into Saturday night's Quaker State 400 feeling like they're safe to advance to the second round of the tournament at the Chicago Street Course.

Driver Matchups for the Opening Round of the First-Ever NASCAR In-Season Tournament

• Denny Hamlin (1) vs Ty Dillon (32)
• Chase Briscoe (2) vs Noah Gragson (31)
• Chris Buescher (3) vs Todd Gilliland (30)
• Christopher Bell (4) vs Ricky Stenhouse Jr. (29)
• Chase Elliott (5) vs Austin Dillon (28)
• Ty Gibbs (6) vs Justin Haley (27)
• Ryan Blaney (7) vs Carson Hocevar (26)
• Alex Bowman (8) vs Joey Logano (25)
• Bubba Wallace (9) vs Daniel Suarez (24)
• Kyle Larson (10) vs Tyler Reddick (23)
• Michael McDowell (11) vs AJ Allmendinger (22)
• John Hunter Nemechek (12) vs Josh Berry (21)
• Ross Chastain (13) vs Erik Jones (20)
• Zane Smith (14) vs Austin Cindric (19)
• Ryan Preece (15) vs William Byron (18)
• Kyle Busch (16) vs Brad Keselowski (17)

The first race of the opening round of the NASCAR In-Season Challenge will be the Quaker State 400 at EchoPark Speedway on Saturday, June 28. All five races in the in-season tournament will be televised on TNT, and the television coverage of the opening race is scheduled to kick off at 7:00 PM ET.