DOVER, Del. — Brad Keselowski says having all 16 Chase drivers start in the front of the field will be “fun to watch.”
He just won’t catch much of the action.
Keselowski has the pole after rain wiped out qualifying Friday at Dover International Speedway. It was the third straight Dover race where qualifying was canceled because of rain.
Keselowski benefited this time because Sunday’s Sprint Cup race was set on owner points. The 16 Chase drivers make up the first eight rows in the field, and it should be a battle from the start — the playoff field is cut from 16 to 12 drivers following Dover.
“I won’t get to see it, but you will,” Keselowski said. “That will be fun to watch.”
Martin Truex Jr. and Kevin Harvick have already advanced to the next round with Chase victories. Truex joins Keselowski on the front row. Kyle Busch starts third, followed by Matt Kenseth and Joey Logano.
Other Chase qualifiers, from sixth to 16th are: Kevin Harvick, Denny Hamlin, Jimmie Johnson, Carl Edwards, Chase Elliott, Kurt Busch, Kyle Larson, Austin Dillon, Jamie McMurray, Tony Stewart, and Chris Buescher.
Buescher made the Chase on the back of a rain-shortened victory at Pocono and made the rookie driver perhaps the most surprising playoff entrant in NASCAR history.
He pretty much has to win to advance to the second round, akin to a No. 16 seed beating a 1 in the NCAA tournament.
“It’s kind of nice to be able to go into a race and just worry about doing the best you can,” he said. “It’s going to make it where we’re able to go out here and not worry about it, take some chances, try and utilize some risk, and see if we can pull something off.”
Pla takes pole for IMSA finale
Frenchman Olivier Pla took the pole Friday for the 10-hour Petit Le Mans endurance race Sunday, the season finale for the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.
Pla had a fast lap at 1 minute, 13.061 seconds at 2.54-mile Road Atlanta in Michael Shank Racing’s Honda-powered Liger prototype. He will co-drive with Brazil’s Oswaldo Negri.
“The car has been fantastic and the crew just kept improving it,” Pla said.
Tristan Nunez was second in the Prototype class, the fastest of the four classes competing at Road Atlanta, with a 1:13.520 in a Mazda,
In the Prototype Challenge class, Robert Alon was quickest with a lap of 1:16.411 in his PR1/Mathiasen Chevrolet-powered Oreca. In GT Le Mans, the Ford Chip Ganassi Ford GT, driven by Richard Westbrook, led the class with a best lap of 1:18.131. And in GT Daytona, a class based on production cars, Jeroen Bleekemolen put his Dodge Viper GT3-R on the pole at 1:21.305.
