Image by Kinrade/LAT
Daytona qualifying cancelled; Logano to start from pole
Joey Logano and Kyle Busch will start from the front row in the Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona after qualifying was canceled.
NASCAR officials made the decision to cancel single-car qualifying when thunder and lightning moved into the area Friday afternoon. The starting lineup for Saturday night’s race has been set per the rulebook (owner points).
Logano’s No. 22 Team Penske Ford and Busch’s No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota sit atop those standings. Brad Keselowski, Kevin Harvick, and Martin Truex Jr. round out the rest of the top five.
“I think anytime you can be first it’s a good position,” said Logano. “That’s where I want to be all the time. The beginning or the end I want to be first all the time. We never made a qualifying run to really know where our single-car speed was gonna be – not that we were banking on rain or anything like that, it just played out that way.
“We’ll take it. I’ve never had a superspeedway pole before, and I don’t know if this actually counts as one or not, but I’m starting first and I’m counting it and that’s all that matters.”
Starting sixth through 10th will be Denny Hamlin, Chase Elliott, Kurt Busch, Alex Bowman, and Ryan Blaney.
Defending race winner Erik Jones lines up 17th.
William Byron will drop to the rear of the field after going to a backup car because of the incident he had with Brad Keselowski in final practice.
A full field of 40 cars will take the green flag after 7:30 p.m. ET on NBC.
Kelly Crandall
Kelly has been on the NASCAR beat full-time since 2013, and joined RACER as chief NASCAR writer in 2017. Her work has also appeared in NASCAR.com, the NASCAR Illustrated magazine, and NBC Sports. A corporate communications graduate from Central Penn College, Crandall is a two-time George Cunningham Writer of the Year recipient from the National Motorsports Press Association.
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