Darlington qualifying canceled, Reddick to start from pole

NASCAR Cup Series practice and qualifying were canceled Saturday at Darlington Raceway because severe weather lingered over the area.

Initially, lightning delayed the start of Cup Series practice by 20 minutes before NASCAR gave the all-clear. But less than three minutes after NASCAR had released the drivers onto the track for practice, lightning struck again. After a near two-hour delay for continued lightning strikes and some thunder, but no rain, NASCAR had to cancel the on-track activity.

As a result, Tyler Reddick (C) will start from the pole in the Southern 500 via the metric. Daniel Suarez (C) will share the front row with him.

The first race of the Chase will begin with no previous track time for drivers. Reddick won at Darlington in the spring.

“For everyone at home watching and everyone here that wanted to watch practice and qualifying, obviously a bummer,” said Reddick. “But for the 45, this is about the best-case scenario. We know exactly what we have and how happy we were with it in the spring, and no one got to go on track and try things. So, again, my confidence was already sky high coming into this weekend with what we had. We’ll see how the race goes tomorrow night, but this is great for us.”

Ryan Preece (C) will start third with Denny Hamlin (C) starting fourth and Michael McDowell starting fifth. Austin Cindric (C) will start sixth with Chase Briscoe (C) starting seventh.

Briscoe is the two-time defending Southern 500 winner.

Ricky Stenhouse Jr. will start eighth, Austin Dillon will start ninth, and Alex Bowman will start 10th. Christopher Bell (C) will start 11th, with Brad Keselowski starting 12th, Joey Logano (C) starting 13th, Josh Berry starting 14th, and Riley Herbst starting 15th.

The rest of the Chase drivers in the field will be Bubba Wallace starting 17th, Chase Elliott starting 18th, and William Byron starting 20th. Further back will be Ryan Blaney starting 24th, Kyle Larson starting 25th, and Ty Gibbs starting 28th.

The furthest back will be Carson Hocevar starting 34th and Chris Buescher starting 35th.

There are 38 teams entered in Sunday night’s race.

UP NEXT: The Southern 500 at 5pm ET Sunday.

(C denotes Chase driver.)