LOUDON, N.H. — Dawswonville’s Chase Elliott, the NASCAR Cup points leader, will start on the pole in Sunday’s USA Today 301 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway after rain washed out Saturday’s qualifying session.
Ryan Blaney, last week’s winner in the inaugural NASCAR Cup Series race at Iowa Speedway, starts second. William Byron, Christopher Bell and Alex Bowman complete the top five.
Elliott, Byron and Bowman give Hendrick Motorsports three spots in the first three rows. Elliott, who has one win this season, has one runner-up finish but has never won at New Hampshire.
“We’d rather have an actual pole, for sure,” Ellliott said. “But you know, circumstances being what they are, fortunately our team has been performing at a really solid level over the past couple of months. The reality of it is that it put us in a position to have a good starting spot for a rainout situation.”
With more rain in the forecast Sunday — a year after weather pushed the race to Monday — NASCAR moved up green flag time for the Cup race to 2:06 p.m.
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