Rain cancels all qualifying at Darlington

DARLINGTON, S.C. - Steady rain Friday at Darlington Raceway canceled all track activity, including Bud Pole Qualifying for both the NASCAR Winston Cup Series' Mountain Dew Southern 500 and Busch Series' Gatorade 200.

	Sterling Marlin will sit on the pole for Sunday's Southern 500.

Officials were unable to start track drying at the 1.366-mile oval by 2:30 p.m. ET, and with estimates that it would take as much as three hours to dry the racing surface once the jet dryers began circulating, the plug was pulled.

There will be no change in Saturday morning's schedule. Two 45-minute Winston Cup practice sessions will be held at 9:30 and 11:15 and the Busch Series will start its race on schedule without any practice on the tricky egg-shaped layout.

The 43-car starting lineup for the 25th Busch race of the season was set by owner points, with leaders Greg Biffle and Jason Keller set to lead the field to the green flag at 1 p.m. Saturday.

When qualifying was canceled, the teams of drivers Gus Wasson (lowest in owner points) and Ron Young (post entry) were eliminated from the field.

LINEUPS • Gatorade 200 • Mountain Dew Southern 500

Busch Series director Brian DeHart said he thought the last time a Busch race went off without practice was at Rockingham in 1995. He said a "competition caution" would be displayed on lap 25 of 147 to allow teams to adjust their chassis and check tire wear, as well as to put half a front spring rubber in place if desired.

He said the moves were two provisions NASCAR has in place for instances such as occurred Friday, to enable competitors to build adjustability into their set-ups.

The 43-car starting lineup for the 25th Winston Cup race of the season was also set by owner points, with leaders Sterling Marlin and Mark Martin set to lead the field to the green flag at 1 p.m. Sunday.

As a result, Carl Long's team went home since it has no owner points for this season.

Marlin, who has led the Winston Cup standings since the second race of the season, won at Darlington in March from the back of the field after an engine change in his No. 40 Dodge.

"This is Darlington and it doesn't really matter if you start up front or behind," Marlin said. "We started last in the spring and came back and won the race, so it's not a big deal."

Ward Burton, the Southern 500's defending champion, said he would have liked to get more practice as opposed to less.

"This track is always important to get a lot of practice time on," he said. "But not even NASCAR can control Mother Nature so we'll do the best with it that we can."