DARLINGTON, S.C. — Persistent lightning at Darlington Raceway forced NASCAR to cancel practice and qualifying ahead of Sunday's Southern 500. As a result, Tyler Reddick will lead the field to the green flag.
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Reddick, who won the spring race at Darlington, has started top-10 in every race at Darlington since joining 23XI Racing. He has started first in eight races this season — five from winning the pole and three from the qualifying metric.
He will continue this streak in what he believes to be an ideal scenario for him and his team. He wanted NASCAR to set the lineup by the qualifying metric, and he wanted to hit the track without other drivers getting to test their setups on the egg-shaped oval.
MORE: Southern 500 Starting Lineup
"It's literally best case scenario for us," Reddick said. "We were so strong here last spring. Ironically enough, as I kind of got going in Cup racing, it was during COVID, and there was no practice at all, and I kind of got very used to just having to figure it out the first corner.
"And so for me, in general, I feel within a really good spot most weekends when this happens, and we just have to unload and race, but beyond that, with as strong as we were, obviously, I think, you can imagine teams wanting to try things and see if they close the gap, or what that all looks like, right? And no one really, no one had any kind of opportunity at all with that today."
Daniel Suarez will line up second for the Southern 500 after finishing second in last weekend's race at Daytona International Speedway. Ryan Preece, the man who won the regular-season finale, will line up third. Denny Hamlin will join Preece on the second row for the start of the race.
The rest of the top 10 will include Michael McDowell, Austin Cindric, Chase Briscoe, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Austin Dillon, and Alex Bowman.
Six of the 16 Chase drivers will start the Southern 500 inside of the top 10. The rest will have to work their way forward during the opening stage in order to contend for points.
This group included Christopher Bell in 11th, Joey Logano in 13th, Bubba Wallace in 17th, Chase Elliott in 18th, William Byron in 20th, Ryan Blaney in 24th, Kyle Larson in 25th, Ty Gibbs in 28th, Carson Hocevar in 34th, and Chris Buescher in 35th.
Blaney will have another issue to contend with early in the Cup Series race. He will work out of a pit stall that his team did not choose after his No. 12 Team Penske Ford failed pre-race inspection two times.
