Storms Cancel North Wilkesboro Qualifying; Blaney Gets Pole
Summary
Persistent storms and a lightning hold forced NASCAR to cancel Cup Series qualifying Saturday at North Wilkesboro Speedway, leaving the Window World 450 lineup to be set by NASCAR’s performance metric. Ryan Blaney, who led the metric entering the weekend, was awarded the pole position for Sunday’s race, with Ty Gibbs starting alongside him on the front row. Christopher Bell, Carson Hocevar and Tyler Reddick rounded out the top five.
The rest of the 37-car starting lineup placed Erik Jones sixth, Denny Hamlin seventh, Shane van Gisbergen eighth, Chris Buescher ninth and Chase Elliott 10th. Joey Logano was listed 11th, William Byron 15th, Brad Keselowski 23rd, Kyle Larson 27th and Chad Finchum 37th. Sunday’s 450-lap race was scheduled to begin at 7:14 p.m. ET on TNT.
Inspection issues also shuffled parts of the field. Ross Chastain was sent to the rear and given a pass-through penalty after his No. 1 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet failed pre-race inspection three times, and he lost pit selection for the weekend. His car chief, David Fero, was removed for the rest of the weekend. Austin Hill’s No. 33 Richard Childress Racing team and Connor Zilisch’s No. 88 Trackhouse Racing team each failed inspection twice, costing both teams their car chief and pit selection.