Logano On Kansas Cup Pole After Rain Wipes Out Practice, Qualifying

Joey Logano is really, really good right now. And on top of it all, the Team Penske driver has luck on his side as well. Last weekend, Logano scored his third win of the season in the Bass Pro Shops Night Race at Bristol, as he snuck by Carson Hocevar and Ty Gibbs, who were battling hard amongst themselves, for the race lead and win.

This week, that win and Logano's third-place ranking in the NASCAR Cup Series championship standings collectively secured him the pole position for Sunday's Hollywood Casino 400 at Kansas Speedway.

Mother Nature, for the third consecutive week, washed out NASCAR Cup Series practice and qualifying, which forced NASCAR to set the starting lineup by way of the performance metric formula.

While it won't count as an official pole position on the stat sheet, Logano will have every bit of the advantage that comes with traditional polesitters in Sunday afternoon's race.

Kyle Larson, who comes into this weekend's race as the point leader by one point over Denny Hamlin, will start second driving the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet.

The top nine positions in the starting lineup are held by Chase contending drivers.

Christopher Bell, Carson Hocevar, Ty Gibbs, Denny Hamlin, Bubba Wallace, William Byron, and Ryan Preece are the other Chase contenders starting in positions three through nine.

Josh Berry, in 10th, will be the highest-starting non-Chase contender.

Chase contenders just outside of the top-10 starting spots include Austin Cindric (11th), Chris Buescher (12th), Daniel Suarez (14th), and Tyler Reddick (15th).

It'll likely be uphill sledding all race long for Chase Elliott (18th), Chase Briscoe (23rd), and Ryan Blaney (25th), as all three of these Chase contenders had rough outings last weekend at Bristol, which severely impacted their starting spots this weekend.

Whether the metric formula is a proper way to set the starting lineup when qualifying is canceled in the NASCAR National Series is beginning to be a legitimate debate.

This marks the third consecutive race inside the NASCAR Cup Series Chase that has had the starting lineup set by the metric due to Mother Nature wiping out practice and qualifying. As a result, a random race result from the previous week has mired several Chase contenders in the following week's race.

The lack of track position to start the race puts these championship contenders at a drastic disadvantage to those who start near the front, and compounding the affects of the situation are that Stage Points, awarded for top-10 finishing drivers in the opening two Stages of the race, are nearly impossible to come by for those starting at the rear of the pack.

Official Hollywood Casino 400 Starting Lineup

Pos	Car	Driver	Team	Make
1	22	Joey Logano (C)	Team Penske	Ford
2	5	Kyle Larson (C)	Hendrick Motorsports	Chevrolet
3	20	Christopher Bell (C)	Joe Gibbs Racing	Toyota
4	77	Carson Hocevar (C)	Spire Motorsports	Chevrolet
5	54	Ty Gibbs (C)	Joe Gibbs Racing	Toyota
6	11	Denny Hamlin (C)	Joe Gibbs Racing	Toyota
7	23	Bubba Wallace (C)	23XI Racing	Toyota
8	24	William Byron (C)	Hendrick Motorsports	Chevrolet
9	60	Ryan Preece (C)	RFK Racing	Ford
10	21	Josh Berry	Wood Brothers Racing	Ford
11	2	Austin Cindric (C)	Team Penske	Ford
12	17	Chris Buescher (C)	RFK Racing	Ford
13	1	Ross Chastain	Trackhouse Racing	Chevrolet
14	7	Daniel Suarez (C)	Spire Motorsports	Chevrolet
15	45	Tyler Reddick (C)	23XI Racing	Toyota
16	6	Brad Keselowski	RFK Racing	Ford
17	97	Shane van Gisbergen	Trackhouse Racing	Chevrolet
18	9	Chase Elliott (C)	Hendrick Motorsports	Chevrolet
19	3	Austin Dillon	Richard Childress Racing	Chevrolet
20	34	Todd Gilliland	Front Row Motorsports	Ford
21	4	Noah Gragson	Front Row Motorsports	Ford
22	71	Michael McDowell	Spire Motorsports	Chevrolet
23	19	Chase Briscoe (C)	Joe Gibbs Racing	Toyota
24	16	AJ Allmendinger	Kaulig Racing	Chevrolet
25	12	Ryan Blaney (C)	Team Penske	Ford
26	42	John Hunter Nemechek	LEGACY MOTOR CLUB	Toyota
27	88	Connor Zilisch #	Trackhouse Racing	Chevrolet
28	38	Zane Smith	Front Row Motorsports	Ford
29	41	Cole Custer	Haas Factory Team	Chevrolet
30	43	Erik Jones	LEGACY MOTOR CLUB	Toyota
31	47	Ricky Stenhouse, Jr.	Hyak Motorsports	Chevrolet
32	33	Austin Hill (i)	Richard Childress Racing	Chevrolet
33	48	Alex Bowman	Hendrick Motorsports	Chevrolet
34	35	Riley Herbst	23XI Racing	Toyota
35	51	Cody Ware	Rick Ware Racing	Chevrolet
36	10	Ty Dillon	Kaulig Racing	Chevrolet

(C) indicates a Chase contender
# indicates a Rookie of the Year contender
(i) indicates a driver ineligible to score points

Add us as a preferred source on Google