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NASCAR insiders baffled by 'odd' In-Season Tournament seeding, question impact on racing

Brian Jones Profile Picby: Brian Jones06/28/25brianjones_93
2025-NASCAR-In-Season-Challenge-Challenge-Round-1-Atlanta-Seeding (1)
Courtesy of NASCAR

NASCAR’s In-Season Tournament begins on Saturday in Atlanta, and two insiders had some interesting things to say about it. On The Teardown podcast, Jeff Gluck and Jordan Bianchi of The Athletic shared their thoughts on the seeding of the tournament and how it would impact the next five races.

“The In-Season Tournament is now set, and as expected, there’s some odd seedings here based on how everything shook out,” Gluck said. “I think we’ve stated here that we wish it would have been done by points, or at least I do.”

Gluck went on to reveal some of the seedings, including William Byron being No. 18. What makes Byron’s seeding interesting is he’s the NASCAR Cup Series points leader and has held that position since winning the Daytona 500 in February. Byron is facing Ryan Preece in the first round of the tournament. Preece is a No. 15 seed but is 14th in points.

The way NASCAR determined the drivers’ seedings in the In-Season Tournament was how they finished in the last three races (Michigan, Mexico City and Pocono). Drivers advance in the tournament by having a higher finish than their head-to-head opponent in the race. This will likely lead to a driver who is not having a great season going on a run and winning the tournament.

More on the NASCAR In-Season Tournament

The winner of the In-Season Tournament gets $1 million. That should be motivation for the 32 qualifying drivers to give it their all, but Bianchi said the tournament won’t change anything in terms of how the drivers approach each race.

“They’re already doing everything they can to run as well as they can every single week,” Bianchi said. “I just don’t know if it inherently is going to change the racing enough to where they need to be aware of this because it doesn’t do anything. They’re still going to go out and run as hard as they can and try to finish the best they can on a given week.”

All five races of NASCAR’s In-Season Tournament will air on TNT. The championship round will take place at the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Sunday, July 27.