After Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series qualifying concluded on Saturday evening at Watkins Glen, Denny Hamlin‘s No. 11 was shown at the top of the leaderboard in the infield. Although, NASCAR fans will have to wait until Sunday morning to find out if his time will stand.
Denny Hamlin on provisional pole for the cup race at “The Glen”
In NASCAR’s new enhanced, two-day schedule that the cup series is running at a handful of tracks, qualifying is hosted before inspection. Usually, when the cup series qualifies on Friday, inspection is held before qualifying to ensure that all the teams are following the rules and the cars are as equal on the track as possible.
If a team fails inspection then they have to fix whatever wasn’t right with the car and go back through inspection again. Though, when the inspection is held after qualifying, NASCAR needs a way to penalize the cars that aren’t up to par.
So, if a team fails inspection, which will start on Sunday at 7:00 a.m. ET, they will be sent to the rear of the field, as we saw last week at Pocono. During that race, 13 cars were sent back, resulting in some exciting first handful of laps, and plenty of drama. This week expect it to be no different.
Hamlin won the outright pole position on Saturday in front of a dominant Kyle Busch and hard-charging Chase Elliott. Elliott is riding a streak of two straight top-10’s after putting together strong runs along with his Hendrick Motorsports teammates the past few weeks.
Right behind him is Martin Truex Jr., who has won each of the past two road course races that NASCAR has held. In 8th is the popular road course ringer in A.J. Allmendinger, who missed a shift while leading under caution in the MENCS race at Sonoma earlier this year.
As Truex Jr., Busch, and Kevin Harvick, have dominated this season, fans are eager to see a new face in victory lane, and maybe it will be that of Allmendinger’s on Sunday. The Go Bowling at The Glen will kick off at 3:00 p.m. ET and will be televised nationally on NBC.
Update on Sunday (August 5 2018):
After inspection, only two teams were turned away on their first attempt through. Paul Menard and Kurt Busch were the victims, sending them both to the rear of the field at the start of the race. Busch will start in front of Menard based on owners points.
Go Bowling at The Glen Starting Lineup
1. Denny Hamlin
2. Kyle Busch
3. Chase Elliott
4. Martin Truex Jr.
5. Kyle Larson
6. Joey Logano
7. Aric Almirola
8. A.J. Allmendinger
9. Erik Jones
10. Kasey Kahne
11. Ryan Blaney
12. Michael McDowell
13. Jimmie Johnson
14. Jamie McMurray
15. Kevin Harvick
16. William Byron
17. Brad Keselowski
18. Clint Bowyer
19. Ryan Newman
20. Chris Buescher
21. Daniel Suarez
22. Alex Bowman
23. Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
24. Austin Dillon
25. David Ragan
26. Matt Kenseth
27. Parker Kligerman
28. Matt DiBenedetto
29. Bubba Wallace
30. Ty Dillon
31. Cole Whitt
32. Ross Chastain
33. Josh Bilicki
34. Spencer Gallagher
35. Landon Cassill
Sent to the back of the grid after they failed inspection:
36. Kurt Busch
37. Paul Menard
MAIN PHOTO:
Embed from Getty Images
