For the second straight weekend, NASCAR’s top-three series have been affected by the onset of inclement weather, this time with the cancellation of NASCAR Xfinity Series qualifying at Darlington.
Friday’s single-car qualifying session had already begun, and just about reached the halfway point when the precipitation arrived, forcing NASCAR to wipe the times put down.
The starting lineup for Saturday’s Mahindra ROXOR 200 at Darlington Raceway will be set by the NASCAR Rule Book, which relies on the performance-based metric used across the sanctioning body over the last two seasons.
Ty Gibbs and Josh Berry will start on the front row for Saturday’s event, as a result of their metric scores. Justin Allgaier, Noah Gragson, and AJ Allmendinger will complete the top-five starters.
Brandon Jones, Sam Mayer, Riley Herbst, Ryan Sieg, and Sheldon Creed will round out the top-10.
With 40 cars entered [for 38 spots] in the 11th NASCAR Xfinity Series event of 2022, Chase Elliott (No. 88) and Brennan Poole (No. 47) will be sent packing.
The 2020 NASCAR Cup Series Champion was attempting to make his first Xfinity Series start of the season, driving a fifth entry for JR Motorsports, at a track the Dawsonville, Georgia-native says he’s struggled at.
“We did have a choice and I wanted to do this one,” Elliott said about selecting Darlington as one of his Xfinity Series events. “I just feel like I’ve struggled here the last couple of years and I haven’t done a great job. So, I wanted some extra laps. I don’t know if it will help or not, but I wanted to give it an effort to do so and try to be better for Sunday.”
Poole, who was planning to run double-duty at Darlington, had locked himself into the race with his qualifying speed at the time of the session’s cancellation, making an already difficult situation sting that much more.
