NASCAR’s Most Popular Driver, Chase Elliott, is set to lead the NASCAR Cup Series field to green in Sunday’s Cook Out Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium.
After laying down the quickest time in Saturday’s qualifying session from the historic quarter-mile racetrack, the Hendrick Motorsports driver went wire-to-wire to win his heat, and secure the pole position for the 200-lap main event.
It’s the first pole position for the Dawsonville, Georgia native in the pre-season exhibition event, and just the second time during his NASCAR Cup Series career that he’s started the event inside the top-10.
“It’s going to be tough to win from third, fourth row. I think the first couple of rows, certainly have a massive advantage over the rest of the field,” Elliott explained in a pole winner press conference. “Obviously, anything can happen. I’ve been doing this, y’all have been watching this long enough to know anything can happen. I’m well aware of that. But I just think in a normal circumstance of people not totally crashing each other or whatever, yeah, I certainly would want to be on the first couple of rows, and fortunately, we are. So, we’ll try to take advantage of that.”
Brad Keselowski, driver of the No. 6 Ford Mustang and co-owner of RFK Racing, finished in the second position in the first heat race, guaranteeing himself a spot in the 23-driver field along with Noah Gragson, Kyle Busch, and Ross Chastain.
In the true spirit of Bowman Gray Stadium, widely known as ‘The Madhouse’, things got pretty messy, with full-contact racing leaving the field to have three incidents in the opening segment of the event, and retaliation between Justin Haley and Noah Gragson.
However, after the first major dose of full-contact action from NASCAR Cup Series vehicles on-track at Bowman Gray Stadium, things seemed to settle down in both the second and third heats.
Chris Buescher, who has failed to make the Clash main event in the last three seasons, when the event was held at the LA Memorial Coliseum, managed to go wire-to-wire in his heat race, holding off a hard-charging Chase Briscoe to earn a second-place starting spot.
Briscoe, in his first outing with Joe Gibbs Racing, advanced to the main event, as did NASCAR Cup Series rookie Shane Van Gisbergen, Bubba Wallace, and another driver from Trackhouse Racing, Daniel Suarez.
2021 NASCAR Cup Series champion Kyle Larson wasn’t as fortunate and fought an ill-handling racecar to an eighth-place result, leaving him to start near the back of the field in Sunday’s 75-lap Last Chance Qualifier.
Similar to the second heat race, Denny Hamlin started from the pole and went wire-to-wire, pulling out to a major advantage over defending NASCAR Cup Series champion Joey Logano to win the heat, and score the third-place starting spot for Sunday’s event.
Logano, William Byron, Carson Hocevar, and Alex Bowman completed the top-five, and all advanced into Sunday’s main event.
Things couldn’t stay calm for very long — this is Bowman Gray Stadium after all.
The fourth and final heat, featured some chaos, with some early-race incidents, including a major shot of retaliation from Ryan Preece to John Hunter Nemechek early in the going, which left the LEGACY MOTOR CLUB entry with critical damage.
Tyler Reddick, throughout all of the early-race chaos, was able to get himself into the lead from the pole in the final heat race, leading wire-to-wire and securing himself a fourth-place starting spot in the main event.
Christopher Bell, Ryan Preece, Austin Cindric, and Todd Gilliland all managed to advance through, as well, as a result of their finishing position.
With the four 25-lap heat races finished, all but three spots in Sunday’s Cook Out Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium have been assigned. Before start of the feature, a 75-lap Last Chance Qualifier will award a pair of spots to the highest finisher.
Once the checkered flag has fallen on that last-ditch effort, the driver highest in 2024 NASCAR Cup Series driver point standings who hasn’t yet earned a spot in the field, will be awarded the 23rd and final spot.
Ryan Blaney, runner-up in series points from last season, is in prime position to claim that provisional. Should he finish top two in the LCQ, Kyle Larson would get the nod. In the scenario that both advance, Ty Gibbs would be able to claim the final spot in the field.
Ty Dillon, who joins Kaulig Racing to pilot the No. 10 Chevrolet in 2025, will start from the pole in the Last Chance Qualifier, with Front Row Motorsports driver Zane Smith on the outside.
Ty Gibbs, Michael McDowell, and Austin Dillon round out the top five starters for the event, with Erik Jones, Riley Herbst, AJ Allmendiner, Justin Haley, and Kyle Larson completing the top-10.
The Last Chance Qualifier will take place at 6:00 PM ET on FOX.
Photo Credit: Team Chevy