Mother Nature Washes Out Bristol Qualifying; Larson On Pole

When it rains, it pours. However, for Kyle Larson, who won last week's NASCAR Cup Series event at World Wide Technology Raceway, that was a good thing on Friday afternoon at Bristol Motor Speedway. Mother Nature wiped out qualifying for Saturday night's Bass Pro Shops Night Race, which handed Larson the top starting spot for the third race of the Chase.

The starting lineup was set by NASCAR's performance metric formula, which takes into account points position, and the finishing position from last week's race.

Now, Larson, who snapped a 51-race winless drought last week, will look to extend his winning streak to two consecutive races. The defending series champion comes into this weekend's race second in the championship standings, just nine points behind Denny Hamlin.

Joey Logano, a three-time NASCAR Cup Series champion, will start alongside Larson on the front row on Saturday night, while Denny Hamlin, the series point leader will start from the inside of Row 2 in the third position.

William Byron, who got a much-needed fourth-place finish last weekend at Gateway, will start from the fourth position on Saturday night, while Carson Hocevar will roll from the starting grid in the fifth position.

Alex Bowman, Ross Chastain, Austin Cindric, Austin Dillon, and Bubba Wallace will round out the top-10 drivers inside the starting lineup on Saturday night.

Chase contenders starting outside the top-10 include: Christopher Bell (12th), Ty Gibbs (13th), Ryan Preece (16th), Tyler Reddick (20th), Chris Buescher (23rd), Chase Briscoe (26th), Chase Elliott (27th), Daniel Suarez (28th), and Ryan Blaney (29th).

Persistent rain and lightning also washed out NASCAR Cup Series practice on Saturday, which means teams will go into Saturday night's Chase race completely blind.

Official Bass Pro Shops Night Race Starting Lineup

Pos	Car	Driver	Team	Make
1	5	Kyle Larson (C)	Hendrick Motorsports	Chevrolet
2	22	Joey Logano (C)	Team Penske	Ford
3	11	Denny Hamlin (C)	Joe Gibbs Racing	Toyota
4	24	William Byron (C)	Hendrick Motorsports	Chevrolet
5	77	Carson Hocevar (C)	Spire Motorsports	Chevrolet
6	48	Alex Bowman	Hendrick Motorsports	Chevrolet
7	1	Ross Chastain	Trackhouse Racing	Chevrolet
8	2	Austin Cindric (C)	Team Penske	Ford
9	3	Austin Dillon	Richard Childress Racing	Chevrolet
10	23	Bubba Wallace (C)	23XI Racing	Toyota
11	6	Brad Keselowski	RFK Racing	Ford
12	20	Christopher Bell (C)	Joe Gibbs Racing	Toyota
13	54	Ty Gibbs (C)	Joe Gibbs Racing	Toyota
14	43	Erik Jones	LEGACY MOTOR CLUB	Toyota
15	88	Connor Zilisch #	Trackhouse Racing	Chevrolet
16	60	Ryan Preece (C)	RFK Racing	Ford
17	41	Cole Custer	Haas Factory Team	Chevrolet
18	16	AJ Allmendinger	Kaulig Racing	Chevrolet
19	42	John Hunter Nemechek	LEGACY MOTOR CLUB	Toyota
20	45	Tyler Reddick (C)	23XI Racing	Toyota
21	71	Michael McDowell	Spire Motorsports	Chevrolet
22	97	Shane van Gisbergen	Trackhouse Racing	Chevrolet
23	17	Chris Buescher (C)	RFK Racing	Ford
24	34	Todd Gilliland	Front Row Motorsports	Ford
25	33	Austin Hill (i)	Richard Childress Racing	Chevrolet
26	19	Chase Briscoe (C)	Joe Gibbs Racing	Toyota
27	9	Chase Elliott (C)	Hendrick Motorsports	Chevrolet
28	7	Daniel Suarez (C)	Spire Motorsports	Chevrolet
29	12	Ryan Blaney (C)	Team Penske	Ford
30	51	Cody Ware	Rick Ware Racing	Chevrolet
31	47	Ricky Stenhouse, Jr.	Hyak Motorsports	Chevrolet
32	21	Josh Berry	Wood Brothers Racing	Ford
33	10	Ty Dillon	Kaulig Racing	Chevrolet
34	35	Riley Herbst	23XI Racing	Toyota
35	38	Zane Smith	Front Row Motorsports	Ford
36	4	Noah Gragson	Front Row Motorsports	Ford
37	66*	Josh Bilicki (i)	Garage 66	Ford

(C) indicates Chase contender
# indicates Rookie of the Year contender
(i) indicates a driver ineligible to score points
* indicates an "Open" team

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