RELATED: Qualifying order
Qualifying at Talladega Superspeedway has undergone a few different formats over the past five years. The rules for this weekend's NASCAR Sprint Cup Series and NASCAR Camping World Truck Series races are the same as last year.
There will be two rounds of qualifying with drivers turning one timed lap. The top 12 will advance to the final round. Each driver will take a warm-up lap, the timed lap and a cool-down lap before returning to pit road. In the Sprint Cup Series, this is different from the procedures at intermediate and short tracks or road courses. For the most part, the Camping World Truck Series uses single-truck qualifying.
Based on practice speeds, vehicles will line up on pit road for the first round -- rather than nose in or nose out in a pit stall -- and NASCAR will release drivers at a predetermined interval. The sanctioning body reserves the right to have more than one vehicle on track at a time. It's likely that two vehicles will be on track at the same time, but the second vehicle won't impede or help the one it follows on track.
Following each lap, NASCAR will impound vehicles, and there will be a 10-minute break between rounds. Only during that break may teams make adjustments, and they will only be allowed to adjust tape and use a cool-down unit at that time.
The final round qualifying order will be set from slowest to fastest speeds in the first round with starting positions 1-12 determined by the fastest laps in that second session.