Rain has pushed the unofficial kickoff to the NASCAR season from a Saturday night shootout to a Sunday afternoon event.
The Advanced Auto Parts Clash at Daytona will now run at 11:35 a.m. on FS1 after a storm cell moved in over the Daytona Beach, Florida area prior to the scheduled start time of around 8:00 p.m. Showers were forecast around 40 percent with a chance of dissipating but to no avail.
The weather forecast for tomorrow calls for 75-degreee weather and a 10 percent chance of rain.
Brad Keselowski will lead the field to green after winning the pole which was determined randomly by lot. The defending winner, Denny Hamlin will join him on the front row, starting second. Jamie McMurray, Austin Dillon and Martin Truex Jr. will round out the top five.
The 17-driver field includes drivers who won the Coors Light Pole Award in 2016 or made the playoffs last season as well as former Daytona 500 pole winners who competed full-time last year and former winners of The Clash.
Rookie Daniel Suarez will drive the No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota as the successor to Carl Edwards who retired suddenly in January. NASCAR allowed him to participate because the preparation of the JGR car was at an advanced stage.
Starting Line Up by Row
Daytona International Speedway
The 39th Annual Advance Auto Parts Clash
Provided by NASCAR Statistics – Fri, February 17, 2017 @ 02:48 PM Central
Track Race Record: Bill Elliott 02/08/87 12:15:10 197.802
Pos Car Driver Team Reason
1 2 Brad Keselowski SKF Ford
2 11 Denny Hamlin FedEx Express Toyota
3 1 Jamie McMurray McDonald’s Big Mac Chevrolet
4 3 Austin Dillon DOW Chevrolet
5 78 Martin Truex Jr. 5-hour Energy Extra Strength Toyota
6 48 Jimmie Johnson Lowe’s Chevrolet
7 4 Kevin Harvick Busch Beer Ford
8 88 Alex Bowman Nationwide Chevrolet
9 22 Joey Logano Shell Pennzoil Ford
10 41 Kurt Busch Monster Energy/Haas Automation Ford
11 42 Kyle Larson Credit One Bank Chevrolet
12 10 Danica Patrick TaxAct Ford
13 18 Kyle Busch M&M’s Toyota
14 24 Chase Elliott NAPA Chevrolet
15 20 Matt Kenseth Interstate Batteries Toyota
16 19 Daniel Suarez ARRIS Toyota
17 37 Chris Buescher Kroger Click List Chevrolet