Heavy squalls washed out the Sprint Cup’s scheduled Thursday night qualifying session at Chicagoland Speedway in Joliet. As a result, the starting grid for Saturday night’s LifeLock.com 400 will be based on owner points.
That puts Joe Gibbs Racing’s Kyle Busch,who has six victories this season, on the pole with Hendrick Racing’s Dale Earnhardt Jr. outside him on the front row. Behind them will be Childress Racing’s Jeff Burton and Roush Fenway Racing’s Carl Edwards.
“That was pretty ugly. I’m proud to be here,” said Burton, who braved the storm to make an appearance after the cancellation. Then he was asked the effect of the cancellation come Saturday night.
“I don’t think qualifying really has any impact on the race at all other than, obviously, where you start,” he said. “Just qualifying tonight, I don’t think, would have taught you anything about the race track for Saturday night.
“It didn’t feel like our car was real fast in practice, but hopefully we can get some practice in [on Friday] and make it better for the race,” said Busch, who spent the early portion of practice in race trim before switching to a qualifying setup.
Greg Biffle, who topped the practice chart at 179.748 mph, will start 11th in his No. 16 Roush Fenway Racing Ford. Burton, Carl Edwards, Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon, Denny Hamlin, Kasey Kahne, Matt Kenseth and Clint Bowyer will start from positions 3-10 based on their current owner points positions.
With no night practices scheduled before Saturday’s race, drivers and teams have to take educated guesses at which adjustments might help adapt the car to nighttime track conditions.
“There’s going to be a learning curve, for sure,” said Burton, who also is in Friday’s Nationwide race to learn track conditions.
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