No session, no problem
Rain washed out Busch Light pole qualifying at Darlington Raceway on Saturday evening. Tyler Reddick will lead the field to green anyway.
The 23XI Racing driver takes the pole for the Cook Out Southern 500, the race that opens The Chase on Sunday night at 5 p.m. ET. NASCAR set the grid on the rainout performance metric, and the No. 45 Toyota came out on top of it.
“This is literally the best-case scenario for us,” Reddick said. “We were so strong here in the spring. Ironically enough, as I kind of got going in Cup racing, it was during COVID with no practice at all and I got very used to just having to figure it out in the first corner. So for me, generally, I feel like we’re in a really good spot most weekends when this happens. But beyond that, as strong as we were, I know teams may want to try things to close the gap, but no one had that opportunity today, so that helps us even more.”
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Eight poles, five of them earned on track
This marks the eighth time this season Reddick starts first. Five came through a formal qualifying session, three through cancelled ones. He has started inside the top 10 at every Darlington race across his four years with 23XI, and he led 77 of 293 laps on his way to victory here in March.
Daniel Suarez lines up alongside him in the No. 7 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet. Ryan Preece takes third, championship leader Denny Hamlin fourth. Hamlin arrives with five career Darlington wins, more than anyone else in the field, plus the regular-season title and a 25-point cushion over the next driver in the 16-car championship group.
The metric punished several contenders
Michael McDowell, not championship-eligible, starts fifth. Austin Cindric and two-time defending race winner Chase Briscoe follow. Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Austin Dillon and Alex Bowman complete the top 10.
Further back sit names who will not enjoy the view. Christopher Bell rolls off 11th, Joey Logano 13th, Bubba Wallace 17th, Chase Elliott 18th. William Byron starts 20th, Kyle Larson 25th, Ryan Blaney 24th, Ty Gibbs 28th, Carson Hocevar 34th and Chris Buescher 35th on a 38-car grid. Logano, Larson and Byron have all won at Darlington before. None of them gets to prove it from the front.
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