Race number four of NASCAR's latest and greatest gimmick is scheduled to take place on Sunday afternoon at Dover Motor Speedway.
Of the 32 Cup Series drivers who qualified for the Inaugural In-Season Challenge, four are still eligible for the $1 million prize after three weekends of head-to-head matchups at Atlanta Motor Speedway, the Chicago Street Course, and Sonoma Raceway heading into Sunday's 400-lap Autotrader EchoPark Automotive 400 around the four-turn, 1.0-mile (1.609-kilometer) high-banked Monster Mile oval in Dover, Delaware.
And one of them is sitting in 31st place in the point standings.
That one driver had the worst top finish among all 32 drivers in the three seeding races at Michigan International Speedway, Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, and Pocono Raceway leading up to the five-race tournament, yet he has managed to work his way through the first three rounds simply by having better results than the drivers he's been matched up against.
That one driver, Kaulig Racing's Ty Dillon, also happens to be the only remaining non-Toyota driver in the semifinal round. He is Chevrolet's lone representative, and he is two races from potentially being crowned champion despite having scored one top 10 finish all year.
Ty Dillon, of all drivers, is Chevrolet's last chance
Let's be generous for a second. Dillon does have the 10th best average finish over the first three tournament races. But this is also one of the best three-race stretches of his career, and he still needed DNFs from his opponents in the first two rounds to advance. He also needed to move his opponent out of the way on the final lap at Sonoma to beat him – for 17th.
And even 10th best doesn't necessarily scream "top four-worthy".
His best finish during this stretch is eighth place, which is his lone top 10 finish in three years. A total of 16 other drivers have posted something better than an eighth place finish during these three races alone.
Yet because of the head-to-head matchups, only two of them, Joe Gibbs Racing's Ty Gibbs and 23XI Racing's Tyler Reddick, are still eligible to win the tournament.
So of course, those two drivers are set to match up against one another at Dover, meaning that one of them won't even get to the championship round. But Dillon has a considerably more favorable matchup.
In fact, his opponent has had an even more favorable path to reach this round. Legacy Motor Club's John Hunter Nemechek has posted finishes of 26th, 15th, and 28th in the tournament so far, yet here he is, needing to beat the 31st place driver in points to have a shot at the tournament championship next weekend at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
So will Ty Dillon become a NASCAR legend and take Chevrolet to the promised land in year number one of this extremely random mid-season competition, or will one of the three remaining Toyota drivers, one of whom has had his own string of good fortune to get to the point, end his Cinderella run?
Those lapped car battles for 25th could be as intense as ever.
And by the way, if you're new to the sport, and you think that is crazy, wait until you see how NASCAR picks its annual champion come playoff time.
Qualifying was canceled for Sunday's race on Saturday due to rain. Based on NASCAR's qualifying metric, Reddick is set to start fourth ahead of Gibbs in ninth, while Dillon is set to start in 21st ahead of Nemechek in 28th. A full starting lineup can be found here.
The AutoTrader EchoPark Automotive 400 is set to be shown live on TNT Sports from Dover Motor Speedway starting at 2:00 p.m. ET this Sunday afternoon.