Mother Nature Hands Darlington Pole to Tyler Reddick

Tyler Reddick will begin his quest for the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series championship from the pole position in Sunday’s Cook Out Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway. And while Reddick will head into the opening race of the Chase with a clear track position advantage, he gained it not by anything he did on track Saturday at Darlington; instead, it was Mother Nature that intervened.

NASCAR was forced to cancel NASCAR Cup Series practice and qualifying due to persistent lightning strikes within eight miles of the 1.366-mile speedway in Darlington, SC. Due to this, the starting lineup for Sunday’s crown jewel event was set by the NASCAR Cup Series rulebook.

Reddick, who had the best metric formula of anyone on the entry list this week, will start from the pole position in the No. 45 Chumba Casino Toyota.

Daniel Suarez, who finished second a weekend ago at Daytona International Speedway, will start from the second position in Sunday’s race at Darlington.

Ryan Preece, who took an emotional first career win to secure a Chase berth last weekend, will start from the third position alongside Denny Hamlin, the No. 1 seed in the NASCAR Cup Series Chase who owns five career wins at Darlington.

Michael McDowell, Austin Cindric, Chase Briscoe, Ricky Stenhouse, Jr., Austin Dillon, and Alex Bowman rounded out the top-10 starters for Sunday evening’s race, which will kick off the Chase for the championship.

10 of the 16 drivers vying for the NASCAR Cup Series championship will start outside of the top-10 on Sunday.

Christopher Bell (11th) will start best of the 10 Chase drivers outside of the top-10 in the starting lineup. Other Chase drivers include Joey Logano (13th), Bubba Wallace (17th), Chase Elliott (18th), William Byron (20th), Ryan Blaney (24th), Kyle Larson (25th), Ty Gibbs (28th), Carson Hocevar (34th), and Chris Buescher (35th).

Official Starting Lineup for the Cook Out Southern 500 at Darlington