Storms force cancellation of Chicago Cup qualifying

JOLIET, Ill. -- Afternoon thundershowers soaked Chicagoland Speedway on Thursday, forcing cancellation of qualifying for Saturday night's LifeLock.com 400 Sprint Cup race.

Accordingly, the field was set according to the NASCAR rule book, with the No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota of Kyle Busch starting from the pole. Dale Earnhardt Jr., who passed Jeff Burton for the second spot in the Cup championship standings last Saturday at Daytona, will take the green flag from the outside of the front row.

Busch's Camry wasn't among the fastest cars in Thursday's rain-shortened practice session at the 1.5-mile track. At 178.106 mph, Busch was 15th on the speed charts. Earnhardt was fifth-quickest at 178.814 mph.

"It didn't feel like our car was real fast in practice, but hopefully we can get some practice in [on Friday] and make it better for the race," said Busch, who spent the early portion of practice in race trim before switching to a qualifying setup.

Greg Biffle, who topped the practice chart at 179.748 mph, will start 11th in his No. 16 Roush Fenway Racing Ford. Burton, Carl Edwards, Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon, Denny Hamlin, Kasey Kahne, Matt Kenseth and Clint Bowyer will start from positions 3-10 based on their current owner points positions.

"We looked at the weather and thought that we'd get qualifying in," said Burton, who will compete in Friday night's Nationwide Series race in preparation for the first night Cup race at the speedway on Saturday. "I guess we should have concentrated totally on race trim."

This is the fourth qualifying rainout of the season, the last coming June 13 at Michigan, where rain washed out time trials for the LifeLock 400.

With fewer qualifying attempts this year than the rest of the teams in the field, Johnny Sauter in the No. 08 Dodge and Tony Raines in the No. 34 Chevrolet were victims of the rainout and won't start Saturday's race.