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NASCAR returns to Talladega Superspeedway on April 23 and 24 for a tripleheader weekend featuring the ARCA Menards Series, Xfinity Series, and Cup Series. The weekend will feature an altered format that includes only qualifying sessions for the top two series.
The ARCA Menards Series will kick off the weekend with a practice session on Friday, April 22, which will not be available on TV. The Xfinity Series will follow, but the drivers will not take part in any practice. Instead, they will qualify at 5:30 p.m. ET (FS1). All of the drivers will complete one lap before the 10 fastest move on to the final round to battle for the spot on the pole.
The Cup Series drivers will follow the same format. They will take part in qualifying at 11 a.m. ET (FS1) on Saturday, April 23. All of the drivers will complete one lap with the 10 fastest moving on to the final round. These 10 will then take another lap while fighting for the Busch Light Pole Award.
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The First Superspeedway Race Used a Different Format
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GettyRyan Blaney’s No. 12 sits in the garage during practice.
The race weekend at Talladega Superspeedway will follow the previously unveiled practice and qualifying format, and it will mark a significant change from the first weekend of the season.
The Daytona 500 followed a different format than the rest of the superspeedway races. The drivers prepared for the first points-paying event of the season by taking part in a single 50-minute practice session. They gained experience at the superspeedway while preparing for both qualifying and the Bluegreen Vacation Duel races.
The reason for the change is that NASCAR listed the Daytona 500 as one of its “expanded weekends” that feature a separate format. The other events that fall under this category are the first trip to the reconfigured Atlanta Motor Speedway, Bristol dirt, World Wide Technology Raceway, Nashville Superspeedway, and championship weekend at Phoenix Raceway.
Both races at Talladega Superspeedway and the August race weekend at Daytona International Speedway do not fall under this expanded weekend category. They will all have qualifying sessions without any prior practice.
Very Few Active Drivers Have Pole Wins at Talladega
GettyChase Elliott has two pole wins at Talladega Superspeedway.
The trip to Talladega Superspeedway will have an inherent level of intrigue considering that there are only six active drivers with pole wins based on qualifying times. There isn’t a single driver that has dominated qualifying since Bill Elliott posted eight pole wins during his career. Though Jeff Gordon came close with five during his Hall of Fame career.
Kevin Harvick (2005, 2018) and Chase Elliott (2016, 2019) lead the active drivers with two starts on the pole each. Austin Dillon (2019), Kurt Busch (2018), Ricky Stenhouse Jr. (2017), and Martin Truex Jr. (2016) have all won the Pole Award one time each.
Denny Hamlin has three starts from the pole at Talladega Superspeedway (2020, both 2021 races) while Truex has another from the 2020 season. However, they acquired these through NASCAR’s starting lineup formula due to COVID-19 guidelines.
All of these drivers will enter the weekend with favorable chances to win the Busch Light Pole for the Geico 500. One other potential standout option is Kyle Larson, who won the Daytona 500 pole to start the 2022 season. Another is Alex Bowman, who started the 2018 and 2021 Daytona 500s on the pole.
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