LEBANON, Tenn. — The rain and lightning canceled qualifying for Sunday night's Cracker Barrel 400 at Nashville Superspeedway, so NASCAR set the lineup by its metric.
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As a result, Denny Hamlin will lead the field to the green flag. He will start from the front of the pack for the second time this season and the first time since Martinsville.
Tyler Reddick, the points leader, will line up on the front row. This will be his eighth time starting on the front row and the second time starting second.
MORE: Cracker Barrel 400 Starting Lineup
The rest of the top 10 will include Coca-Cola 600 winner Daniel Suarez, Christopher Bell, Kyle Larson, Ty Gibbs, Ryan Blaney, William Byron, Joey Logano, and Shane van Gisbergen.
Corey Heim, who announced a full-time Cup Series ride on Saturday morning, will line up 24th overall. He will be next to Riley Herbst, who he will replace in the No. 35 next season.
Austin Hill will line up 25th overall. He will be driving the No. 33 Chevrolet as Richard Childress Racing moves forward after Kyle Busch suddenly passed away.
Lining up at the front of the pack will provide Hamlin with an opportunity to pursue a career goal. He has started from the pole two times before at Nashville Superspeedway, but he has not captured that elusive win at the Cup Series level. He has made five starts at the 1.33-mile track and finished third two times.
"I really, really want to win here pretty badly," Hamlin said on Saturday afternoon. "So much I can tell that certain weekends people ask all the time do you ever get nervous? Not anymore, I've done it way too many times to get nervous. But on certain weekends where I really want to win I start getting a little nervous pre-practice.
"But I'm thinking about things like, did I get my car right this week? There's certain trends that I look at that might concern me. I end up getting caught up in the things sometimes I can't control, worrying about the outcomes instead of the actual process.
"This is one of them, it's a track where I only have so many chances to get a win here and I've been so close over the last few years. I love the racetrack and feel like it's been a very raceable track over the years and since they've worked the resin in. I'm a little bit nervous going into the weekend."
Hamlin will have another opportunity to pursue the win when he suits up for the Cracker Barrel 400. This race will take place on Sunday at 6 p.m. ET. Prime Video will provide coverage with Adam Alexander, Steve Letarte, and Dale Earnhardt Jr. in the booth.
