Unruly weather forced the postponement of the Spring Cup qualifying last Friday at the Chicagoland Speedway, leaving NASCAR with no other choice but to refer to its rulebook of determining the starting lineup for Sunday’s races.
Sprint Cup practice actually went ahead as scheduled, between 12:30 to 1:55 p.m. ET, with the qualifying supposedly set for 6:45 E.T.
But heavy rains blew in before 5 p.m. forcing the cancellation of the Sprint Cup qualifying. Such also forced the cancellation of the NASCAR Camping World Truck series which was set for 8:30 p.m.
With the cancellation, NASCAR determined the drivers for the 43-car field based on 2015 qualifying attempts and using their lone practices Friday to determine their positioning.
As it turned out, Kevin Harvick will earn the pole at Chicagoland, the first time he will start at pole MyAFibRisk.com 400 at the Chicagoland Speedway. This will be Harvick’s second pole for this season.
Harvick got the pole for having the fastest time at 26.7 seconds during practice plus his stellar qualifying tendencies carried over from the regular season.
Following Harvick will be Joey Logano (28.737), Brad Keselowski (28.750), Martin Truex Jr. (28.754) and Austin Dillon (28.760) rounding up the first five.
The top 24 drivers for the MyAFibRisk.com 400 at Chicagoland can be found over at NASCAR.com
All of the drivers in the top five except for Dillon are among the 16 drivers set to participate in the 10-race Chase for the Sprint Cup Championship playoff.
"We haven't been in race trim yet, we stayed in qualifying trim all day and I felt like it was qualifying during practice," Logano said via SB Nation. "We were really trying to top the charts. We really felt like that was where we would be starting at the end of practice. Obviously this storm is huge and we didn't have a shot in hell of making qualifying happen."
Keselowski, on the other hand, has been doing well in Chicagoland throughout his career, but was a bit disappointed in the manner of how the qualifying came about owing to inclement weather.
Among the drivers who got the raw end of the process were Denny Hamlin and Clint Bowyer. Both are participating in the Chase and now find themselves in the bottom order. Bowyer will start at 26, while Hamlin is at 29.
Chicagoland is the third qualifying washout for this season.
Ryan Blaney, who had posted the 9th fastest time Friday, also fails to get a chance to vie for a spot in the starting lineup.
"What a real bummer for Ryan Blaney," Logano said. "That is a big heartbreaker for him. For the rest of us locked in the race, it doesn't really affect much."