Chase Elliott and Denny Hamlin won Thursday’s qualifying races as the starting field was set for Sunday’s Daytona 500.
Elliott started from the pole and finished at the front of the field in the first half of the Can-Am Duel at Daytona, leading the final 24 laps and beating runner-up Jamie McMurray to the checkered flag by 0.15 of a second as Chevrolet swept the top two finishing positions. Kevin Harvick, Brad Keselowski and Matt Kenseth completed the top five.
Hamlin gave Toyota its turn in Victory Lane by winning the nightcap, storming past race leader Dale Earnhardt, Jr. with an outside move on the next-to-last lap then driving off to secure the #4 starting spot in Sunday’s “Great American Race.” Hamlin beat Clint Bowyer to the finish by 0.2 of a second with Kurt Busch, A.J. Allmendinger and Austin Dillon completing the top five. Earnhardt finished sixth.
With his 2nd place finish in Thursday’s first race, McMurray will line up on the inside of Row 2 alongside Hamlin for Sunday’s official season opener. Front-row qualifiers Elliott and Earnhardt, Jr. were locked in after topping last weekend’s time trials and will lead the field to the green flag Sunday in the 59th running of the Daytona 500.
36 of the 40 starting spots were guaranteed to teams who are part of NASCAR’s one-year-old “Charter” system, leaving just four transfer spots available for non-Charter drivers in Thursday’s doubleheader. Those went to Corey LaJoie, Brendan Gaughan, D.J. Kennington and Elliott Sadler. With 42 drivers entered this year, two failed to qualify: Timmy Hill and Reed Sorenson.
When the green flag flies, it’ll be Denny Hamlin bidding to become the first driver since Sterling Marlin in 1994 and 1995 to win back-to-back Daytona 500s.
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– story by John Singler
www.mrn.com
Concord, North Carolina
