Joey Logano to start first at Daytona after qualifying is rained out
Joey Logano is the Cup Series points leader and therefore he’s on the pole for Saturday night’s race at Daytona.
Logano got the pole because qualifying Friday afternoon was called off due to thunderstorms. Saturday night’s race is an impound race so cars were to be inspected before qualifying Friday afternoon and then impounded before the race where crews can’t make any adjustments. With rain in the area at Daytona, there wasn’t enough time to get the inspection stations up and going ahead of qualifying so NASCAR decided to set the field via owner’s points.
With 40 cars entered for 40 spots, it’s really no big deal. No one is missing the race. Saturday night’s race is just the fifth time all 2019 that a full field of 40 cars will start.
Friday’s two practice sessions did provide some drama. William Byron got turned off the bumper of Brad Keselowski, who said he was sending a message that he wasn’t going to lift for drivers blocking ahead of him.
Keselowski has been unhappy with the blocking movements of drivers at Daytona and Talladega for some time. A crash happened last July at Daytona when Keselowski lifted after Byron dropped into his line and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. got into the back of Keselowski.
“Ricky was doing the best he could to give me a good push and had a great run to take the lead and the car in front of me just threw a late, bad block,” Keselowski said after the crash a year ago. “I made the mistake of lifting instead of just driving through him and that’s my fault. I know better than that. I’ve got to wreck more people and then they’ll stop blocking me late and behind like that. That’s my fault. I’ll take the credit for my team and we’ll go to Talladega and we’ll wreck everybody that throws a bad block like that.”
We’ll see if Keselowski’s message on Friday has any resonance on Saturday night, though it feels like a near-guarantee that a block — or an attempt at a block — will cause a crash of some sort at some point during the race.
Starting lineup
1. Joey Logano
2. Kyle Busch
3. Brad Keselowski
4. Kevin Harvick
5. Martin Truex Jr.
6. Denny Hamlin
7. Chase Elliott
8. Kurt Busch
9. Alex Bowman
10. Ryan Blaney
11. Aric Almirola
12. William Byron
13. Kyle Larson
14. Jimmie Johnson
15. Daniel Suarez
16. Clint Bowyer
17. Erik Jones
18. Ryan Newman
19. Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
20. Paul Menard
21. Austin Dillon
22. Chris Buescer
23. Ty Dillon
24. Daniel Hemric
25. Matt DiBenedetto
26. Ryan Preece
27. David Ragan
28. Michael McDowell
29. Bubba Wallace
30. Corey LaJoie
31. Matt Tifft
32. Quin Houff
33. Landon Cassill
34. Justin Haley
35. BJ McLeod
36. Parker Kligerman
37. JJ Yeley
38. Ross Chastain
39. Brendan Gaughan
40. Joey Gase
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Nick Bromberg is a writer for Yahoo Sports.
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