Chase Elliott to start on pole as rain nixes NASCAR Cup Series qualifying

NASCAR: Cup Practice & Qualifying — Credit: Joe Puetz-USA TODAY Sports

Chase Elliott will start on the pole for the NASCAR Cup Series race on Sunday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway but not on speed because qualifying was rained out.

Sporadic and erratic showers, which is a theme of the weekend, canceled time trials and forced NASCAR to set the field per the rule book. In this scenario, NASCAR uses a metric formula comprised of a driver’s fastest lap time ranking from the previous race (15 percent of the weighted score), the driver’s final race position from the most recent race (25 percent of the weighted score), the car’s final finishing position in the previous race (25 percent of the weighted score), and the car’s owner points position (35 percent of the weighted score) and that sets the lineup.

Elliott and Iowa race winner Ryan Blaney will start on the front row thanks to their metric standing.

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“Yeah, I mean obviously we’d rather have an actual pole, for sure,” Elliott said. “But you know, circumstances being what they are, fortunately our team has been performing at a really solid level over the past couple of months. The reality of it is that it put us in a position to have a good starting spot for a rainout situation. That’s just the reality of the weekend. Certainly, we’ll take a good starting spot, and more importantly, take a really good pit pick there on pit road.”

That pit row selection, the most preferred stall, is the best part of this.

“It’s certainly nice… nicer to have the pit pick, though, to be honest,” Elliott said. “I always feel like the pit stall is more important than the starting spot, just because you live with the pit box all day. The odds of you leading 301 laps are slim to none, but you live with that box all day long and that’s something that can help you all the way through. If you get a late caution or whatever and you’re right there in the hunt, that can be the difference of you coming off pit road first or third, and I think that’s a really important thing that we see every single weekend. Excited about that. Really, I think it’s a team effort that earned us that opportunity. It wasn’t a stellar lap on my end, it was just a solid effort from our group other the last two or three months to have us in a good position to take advantage of the circumstances today.”

The storms also only allowed for about five minutes of practice so the race, which also had a suspect forecast, will take place on a potentially green track without and real track time and may even start, like the Xfinity Series race did on Saturday, on wet weather tires.

The starting lineup for the USA Today 300 can be found below. NASCAR moved the start time up 30 minutes to 2:06 p.m. ET to provide a larger window to get a full race in under the threat of rain. The race will air on the USA Network.